Sooooo here for one week only...Snippet Monday!
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The following passage in an excerpt from The Decagon Project, a story following the adventures of Dani, an 18-year-old writer who wakes up one day and finds herself in the world she had been writing about for the past ten years. This particular passage is taken from the first chapter. Enjoy!
I have never worked for Daphne’s parents. I’d only just started working at their flower shop, “In Bloom”, the week before, and her parents had practically handed her the family business the minute she turned eighteen.
Daphne, on the other hand, had been working at the store since before I can even remember.
As a result, she had had the pleasure of working for her parents for years. So while I never had the opportunity, I had learned all about the experience through her.
I hadn’t heard good things.
But even if what Daphne said was accurate (and I, personally, found it hard to believe that they made her clean the flower cooler with a toothbrush), she wasn’t much more merciful.
So while she sent her younger brother Jason out on deliveries (a job normally reserved for me), she left me on inventory duty. This basically consisted of dragging bucket after bucket of roses from the big truck idling out back into the giant flower cooler in the store, all by myself.
Thanks, Daphne.
I sighed as I plopped the last of the buckets on the ground, shivering at the cold air sending goose bumps up my arms. As soon as I let go of the bucket, I dashed over to the exit and hesitantly poked my head out from behind the heavy cooler door. I glanced around, carefully scanning the hallway.
No Daphne.
I inched my way out of the cooler, closing it carefully and quietly behind me.
Sure, I was technically supposed to be working. But a quick break wouldn’t hurt, right?
I darted across the hallway, stepping on the tips of my toes to avoid making too much noise. I didn’t pause as I slipped through the door opposite to the cooler, holding my breath as I entered the staff lounge and closed the door behind me.
I stopped for a moment. There wasn’t a single sound outside the door.
Perfect.
I tiptoed over to the couch, where I had thrown my old, worn carrier bag on my way in. I slipped my hand in, feeling the familiar, rough surface of my most prized possession.
“Dani?”
I jumped, my heart beating a mile a minute. I yanked my empty hand out of the bag and spun around to face my best friend, clutching a clipboard with one eyebrow cocked higher than the other.
She didn’t look impressed.
“What are you doing?” Daphne asked, tapping her fingers against the clipboard.
“I was just, uh…” I eyed a pen sitting on the table beside me and quickly grabbed it. I held it up in front of me and smiled nervously. “I was grabbing a pen!”
Daphne narrowed her eyes slightly. “What’s that?” she asked flatly, gesturing at the pen tucked behind my ear.
I cursed silently and threw the pen back onto the table behind me. “Well what do you know, guess I went searching for nothing!”
I tried to escape, but she blocked the doorway with her arm, staring at me with the same unimpressed (with a hint of pissed) expression.
“What?” I asked, my voice piquing with fake innocence.
“You brought it, didn’t you.”
Her voice didn’t rise in question. She said it as a statement, a fact she had no doubt in her mind was true.
Working for your best friend can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
I backed away from the door and collapsed onto the couch in defeat. “Yeah.”
“Damnit, Dani!” Daphne sighed and dropped her arm. “You can’t keep doing this! If my parents showed up one day and saw that you were back here writing instead of working, they’d fire you in a second. They still own the place, y’know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Good.” Daphne paused for a moment. “But now that I have the stern talking-to out of the way…”
She tossed her clipboard onto the table and plopped herself down on the old armchair opposite of me. She curled herself up, tucking her knees under her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs, looking at me expectantly. “Tell me what’s happening in ‘The World’.”
I rolled my eyes. “Forget it. I’m not telling you.”
“Awe, c’mon!” she whined, looking at me with her puppy dog eyes. “I won’t tell!”
“You can read it when I’m done.”
Daphne snorted. “You’ve been working on that thing for ten years. You’re never gonna be done.”
She kind of had a point.
“At least give me a hint.” She flashed her puppy dog eyes again.
I sighed. “Cain dies. You happy?” I stood up and started heading out of the lounge.
“WAIT ONE SECOND.” Daphne jumped up and clamped a hand around my wrist, yanking me backwards. “What do you mean Cain dies?”
“Are there multiple meanings?”
“But….but he can’t die!”
I yanked my arm out of her grasp. “Sure he can. People die all the time.” My heart lurched in my chest.
“You know what I mean,” Daphne said more quietly.
I took a deep, slightly shaky breath. “At any rate, I’m the writer, so I can do whatever I want. I’m practically God,” I joked.
Daphne chuckled a little and paused for a moment, as if debating whether or not to speak.
“Well,” she said slowly, “he is the main character. Isn’t there a rule against killing off the main character like that?”
I turned my head to face her and arched an eyebrow. “Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet…”
She slapped my cheek lightly. “That’s different. Shakespeare was depressed.”
“He was not!”
“Well then why the hell did he kill off all of his characters?”
“I dunno, artistic license?”
“Whatever.” She fell back onto the couch and grabbed my arm again, dragging me down with her. “At least tell me how he dies…”
I gave her a look. “Not gonna happen.”
She started shaking my arm, rocking me back and forth. “PLEEEEAAAAAAAA—“
“Oh, for the love of—fine.” I yanked my arm out of her grasp again. “I’ll give you a hint.”
“Yay!” She immediately settled down, tucking her knees back under her chin and settling herself down in the opposite end of the couch.
I sighed. Sometimes I wondered if she really was the 26-year-old she claimed to be.
“Okay, all I’ll tell you is this: he dies protecting the one he cares about the most.”
“You mean that Layla chick?”
I rolled my eyes and stood up. “I’m not saying anything else.”
“Oh my God, it’s that Layla chick, isn’t it! I always hated her!”
“To be fair, it’s not entirely her fault,” I said, approaching the door. Daphne stood up and joined me, grabbing her clipboard on our way out of the room.
“That’s what she wants you to think!”
I rolled my eyes again, this time laughing a bit as the door closed behind us. “Whatever you say…”
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If you would like to read more, you can read the first seven chapters here.
Until later,
- Justyne
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