Michael snaked around the ground level of the house, arms wrapped around the ancient tattered manuscript now in his possession. He feels as protective of it as he would his own child. The secrets it held were the key to his brother’s illustrious career as an author. A career that should have been Michael’s if his brother hadn’t stolen the book from their grandfather. Moving past the doors to the study, he couldn’t resist going within the walls of the sanctuary his brother had built. Bookshelves lined the walls and books lined the shelves. Moving to sit at his brother’s desk, Michael picked up one of the many pencils that were strewn on the surface. Opening the book and skimming down the list of crossed off names lining the page he came to his brother’s. Crossing it out, Michael wrote his own. A warm glow emanated from the pages and wound its way up his arm. He hadn’t expected the power of the book to feel like liquid fire and he bit his tongue as not to scream. Every cell of his body felt like it was exploding and his vision blurred for a moment or two until the pain began to fade. Rising on weak knees, he made his way to the front door and left. As he drove away he didn’t notice the figure of his brother standing in the upstairs window watching him leave.
Upstairs Christopher took a step back and sank onto the bed feeling the power pulling away from him. It had been with him for so long that he felt himself hollowing out and knew time was short.
“I took the book to protect you. All my success paled in comparison to that job. I hope you are ready for what the book brings you. I know I wasn’t.” He said to himself hoping somehow the words would reach his brother.
The next morning his assistant found him where Christopher lay, quite cold and very dead with an unnerving twist in his lips that had been left behind when his soul departed.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When I first saw those five words I thought “There’s no way I can make any kind of sense with those words.” I know, total defeatist attitude, but come on a snake and a pencil? So, I just started playing with them and had a brainstorm to turn “snake” the noun into “snake” the verb and it just kind of went from there. Snaking around, to me, sounds like sneaking around and led towards a darker storyline. I’m going to keep playing with it and see where it goes. I just wanted to give you guys a sneak peek at where my brain is these days.