{"id":215,"date":"2023-02-14T23:31:09","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T04:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=215"},"modified":"2023-09-23T08:16:16","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T12:16:16","slug":"the-slow-burn-chapter-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/the-slow-burn-chapter-10\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slow Burn, Chapter 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Slow Burn<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 10 of ?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> Pitch Black<br \/>\n<b>Synopsis:<\/b> This is a reworked version of chapter 10 (formerly chapter 9) of <i>The Slow Burn<\/i>, which was my first attempt at fan fiction. It was semi-successful, but I stopped writing it after I found my real calling with <i>Apprentice<\/i>. Now I\u2019m revisiting it. The story adds an original character to the group of survivors, and this time around I\u2019m trying to strip away any and all Mary Sue qualities she possessed. In this heavily reworked chapter, Fiona is a sleep-deprived observer to the chaos surrounding Ali\u2019s death and the discovery that everyone may be living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='69e238e9cef517097825109' value='69e238e9cef517097825109'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-69e238e9cef517097825109' value='This story has, overall, an X rating, and is derived from an R-rated movie. By clicking on this link to access the story, you are declaring that you are 18 years of age or older, and that this content is not illegal in your place of residence.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-69e238e9cef517097825109' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-69e238e9cef517097825109' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">This story has, overall, an X rating, and is derived from an R-rated movie. By clicking on this link to access the story, you are declaring that you are 18 years of age or older, and that this content is not illegal in your place of residence.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-69e238e9cef517097825109' ><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;margin-bottom: 20px\"><b>10.<br \/><u>Fiona: Private Nightfall<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">The plan had been to end a very long day with some real, clear, pure water and a light supper, and then everyone would bed down in the empty housing units for their first good, real sleep since the crash. But this desolate world was the death of all plans, Fiona mused.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Riddick and Shazza sparring over what had happened to the colonists hadn\u2019t managed to dampen the festive mood much, and it appeared that he had something important to tell everyone about their fates, when the Imam had burst into the room in a panic. He had barely asked them if they had seen Ali when the boy\u2019s screams sent them all running for a building that Riddick called \u201cthe coring room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">The next few hours were an increasingly surreal blur. She had found herself helping Abu \u2014 which the tearful Imam had confided was his personal name \u2014 to wash and wrap his littlest charge\u2019s maimed and mangled body for burial. Jack had helped as well, more than a little tearful herself. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cI didn\u2019t know he\u2019d gone in there,\u201d Jack had whispered, voice cracking repeatedly on the words. \u201cI was so busy trying to spy on Riddick\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cIt wasn\u2019t your fault,\u201d Abu told her gently, patting her shoulder. Fiona nodded and suppressed a yawn. That was getting harder and harder to do. \u201cHe liked to find his way into places like that. So many times, he would almost give me a heart attack with his antics\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Now it was Jack and Fiona\u2019s turn, yet again, to comfort the cleric as he struggled not to weep.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cI must be strong for a little while longer,\u201d he said after a moment. \u201cAt least long enough to sing his prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Everyone had attended the ceremony, standing back from the Imam and Ali\u2019s cousins as they performed their rituals. It was nothing like any of the funerals Fiona had attended at either her mother\u2019s or father\u2019s churches, she thought, but it still felt holy to her. She stayed quiet and tried not to sway on her feet. Just how long had she been awake now?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Soon after, Fry, Johns, Shazza, and Riddick went back into the coring room, Jack stealing after them a moment later. Fiona sat down and tried to count up just how long she had been awake. How many times had the binary suns risen and set and been replaced by the blue sun since the crash? And how long <i>was<\/i> it between those exchanges? The math was slippery in her head, but she was pretty sure that it had to have been at least thirty-six hours, most of which had been spent dealing with one crisis or another.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\"><i>If I don\u2019t get sleep soon,<\/i> she thought as she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, <i>I\u2019m going to be of no use whatsoever to my family when they get here\u2026 when they\u2026 they\u2026 stop messing around and join us\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cYou are <i>never<\/i> going to <i>believe<\/i> what just happened,\u201d Maggie gushed in her ear.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">She opened her eyes. For a moment, she could swear she saw her twin standing in front of her, smiling\u2026 and then the last of her dozey dream shredded away and Jack was grinning at her. \u201c\u2026What\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Fuck. Of <i>course<\/i> Maggie wasn\u2019t here. Fuck. <i>Fuck.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Jack didn\u2019t seem to notice any of her sudden distress\u2026 yet, anyway. \u201cShazza gave Riddick her breather! She said she was trying to apologize to him! Can you believe that? Maybe that means she\u2019ll let me talk to him now\u2014 hey, are you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Fiona wiped at her cheeks and focused on smiling at Jack. \u201cYeah, I\u2026 just was having a bad dream, is all.\u201d She could see Jack\u2019s worry and found herself wondering how the girl was managing to power through the sleep deprivation with so much blithe energy. It <i>was<\/i> a relief to hear that Shazza had finally forgiven Riddick for surviving when her husband hadn\u2019t. That was why she\u2019d been mad, wasn\u2019t it? And giving him her breather\u2026 \u201cI honestly thought it\u2019d take an act of God himself for that to happen.\u201d But how could it be? With everything that had happened, God clearly had lost them and was having no better luck finding them than Johns had finding north on his spinning compass\u2026 spinning\u2026 north\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cAre you <i>sure<\/i> you\u2019re okay, Fee?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">She nodded and climbed unsteadily to her feet, almost overbalancing as she retrieved her backpack. \u201cJust sleepy, \u2019sall. C\u2019mon, let\u2019s find a place we can crash for a few hours, yeah?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Of course, even that simple plan was soon derailed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">When the others realized that she and Jack were going in search of beds, Fry stopped them and made them wait while Riddick, Johns, and Shazza went from house to house and room to room, declaring which ones were safe and which ones might not be. By the time they were satisfied, things had gone from surreal to <i>trippy<\/i> and Fiona was in no condition to back Jack up in the next argument. They didn\u2019t want her and Jack sharing a room; Jack, they felt, should room with the <i>other boys.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cAre you <i>kidding<\/i> me?\u201d Jack shouted. \u201cI can\u2019t understand a word they say!\u201d Apparently she still wasn\u2019t ready to break her masquerade and reveal that it would have been two girls sharing a bedroom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cFiona?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">She looked up at Shazza blearily. Even the threat of the small eldritch nightmares below the ground\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\"><i>How could anything that small have carried Zeke off?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u2014wasn\u2019t enough to keep her eyes focused anymore. Or open for much longer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">\u201cYou go ahead and find yourself a place to bunk down, yeah?\u201d Shazza told her. \u201cWe\u2019ll work this all out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">She had the weird feeling that someone was staring at her as she began walking toward the stand-alone residences, but when she glanced back, the only one looking her way was Johns. He immediately looked away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">She stopped by three dwellings before she found one that had been marked as safe.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\"><i>Sold.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">Fiona was very glad that she had never been plagued by allergies the way one of her friends was. Maeve would have been struggling to breathe in all of this dust. She initially thought that she would probably wake up completely filthy, albeit safe, if she slept in the cottage\u2019s bedroom, until she realized that its owner had neatly and carefully made the room up sometime before the final, panicked evacuation, and the bed was covered by a large, thick, heavy bedspread that had withstood at least a decade of dust and neglect. Exhausted as she was, she took care in removing it; the sheets and pillows beneath were fairly clean. <i>She<\/i> was dirtier, dust and sweat stuck to her skin. With a relatively clean washcloth she found in a cupboard, she swabbed away the worst of the muck with the last ounces of one of Paris\u2019s bottles of Zinfandel. Slipping out of her clothes and into the nightgown from her backpack, she slid under the clean sheets and felt almost transformed for a moment by their blissful, silky feel. No fancy hotel bed had ever felt so good.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:.25in\">In spite of the light pouring into the room \u2014 nobody wanted to be where it was dark now \u2014 she fell asleep almost immediately. She didn\u2019t even wake up when warm, solid flesh pressed against her back and a pair of strong arms wrapped around her.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Slow Burn Chapter: 10 of ? Fandom: Pitch Black Synopsis: This is a reworked version of chapter 10 (formerly chapter 9) of The Slow Burn, which was my first attempt at fan fiction. 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