Alright, well, time to see if my hard work paid off and I produced a chapter that can grab you the reader's attention. The length of this chapter is a mere 1,276 words, so it won't take you very long. This is not a final draft, so some errors of certain types may still exist, so please excuse any mistakes and enjoy the opening chapter to my novel. Thank you in advance for your time and I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1
“Beep. Beep. Beep.”
Magnis twitched with annoyance from the first sounds of morning. He opened his eyes to meet the morning sun and felt pain. The sensation radiated from his back and spread throughout the top half of his body. He narrowed his eyes and rotated his jaw licking the inside of his mouth. Blood.
His eyes moved along the ceiling. The ceiling fan should be above me. He spread his fingers apart. Cold and smooth. Not the bed sheets and blanket he fell asleep with.
He lifted his right forearm and dug his elbow into the wood. With his head raised, he watched his feet. I can move my toes, I’m not paralyzed.
His heartbeat accelerated. Laura would have shut the alarm off long before I would wake up from it.
“Laura!” Magnis yelled. The acoustics of the room muttered a faint echo in response.
He winced and grunted trying to accomplish the simple action of sitting up.
“Lau-ra! Where are you?” He jerked his head from side to side. I hope she is at work safe and sound? Please God just let her be at work.
His heart continued to pound hard against his ribs; his pulse thumped in his ears and overpowered the sound of the alarm.
He bit down and forced his body to jerk upright. A surge of pain knocked him back down to the floorboards.
“Lau-,” he choked before he could finish and turned his head to spit a string of blood onto the floor. “Laur-,” again thick saliva clung to his throat. He huffed out a few coughs and spit again. The area’s signature wind pushed hard on the house and rattled the window startling him.
“Laura,” he whimpered.
His eyelids fluttered and darkness cast its veil over him. His head went swimmy with thoughts of still calling Laura’s name fresh in his mind.
Magnis trudged up a barren hill holding a rolled up blanket and a shoebox. Wow, the ocean looks nasty today, he thought as he got to the top. He looked behind him and saw Laura gradually climbing the hill shielding her face from the wind; her long brown hair blew wild across her face.
“Magnis,” she called out, “do you really want to do this now?”
“I told you we would have a picnic this week and I meant it.” Sure I put it off till Saturday, but under technicality she can’t call me a liar.
“What? I can’t hear you.”
After some brainwork, he secured the blanket with a few stones. Another rock went into the shoebox as they took their lunch out.
After eating, Magnis sprawled out on the blanket. Next to him, Laura leaned back supporting herself with her arms and gazed out at the beach smiling. Behind them rested the shoebox of used napkins, baggies, two empty soda cans, and of course the rock.
The wind died down enough so they could converse without yelling. “Do you think that there really is a God out there?” Laura asked. “Protecting us and watching over us with unconditional love.”
Magnis chuckled. “Do you want me to answer or agree with you?”
She directed her eyes the sky. “In a week we are getting married and I feel there is so much we haven’t talked about yet, that there is so much we need to know about each other still. I don’t want to find out years from now that I married someone different than who I fell in love with.” She held her smile eyeing the puffy clouds above them.
Magnis turned towards her, made a face of discomfort, and sat upright.
I don’t think I could change if I wanted to. I’ll always be the same man for her, always. Why would she think otherwise? Oh, I know.
He smiled having it all figured out. “That sounded like a line just there. I know you well enough that those aren’t your words you’re using. Is the usual friend from work having trouble minding her own business?” His smile turned dull and he plopped back down on the blanket stretching his arms out behind his head. His hand brushed their makeshift picnic basket and he poked at it just enough to make the soda cans clink together.
“Even if she is, wouldn’t the words still mean the same coming from my mouth?” she leaned forward. Maybe. “Just because a legitimate question came from someone you don’t care for doesn’t make it a bad question.”
He blinked several times in quick succession before he answered; all the while making the cans clink together. “Fine then, I’ll tell you what I believe. It’s simple.” Sort of. He takes a long breath in and out. “At this time in my life, I’m unsure of how I feel. After years of having my mother read the Bible to me; and from years of learning the values, stories, and lessons from it; what I’ve come to believe is that God created scientific facts that could otherwise disprove his part in creation to stir the faith in people, so that you had a choice.”
“So you’re saying you believe in God?” Laura put her hand on his chest and smiled.
“Um, no.” It isn’t easy to explain because I don’t understand it myself.
She laughed and pushed the shoebox out of his reach. “Well, what do you believe?” Her beautiful smile and loving eyes distracted him from the question and it took a moment for him to refocus on what they were talking about.
“I think,” he moved his arms out from behind his head and stretched, keeping his arms at his side, he exhaled deeply before finishing his statement, “ there is no such thing as one who made everything that things go back so far, and that there just is nothing to say except that we just exist. Why do we really need to put so much thought into how and why we exist? Isn’t it enough that we just exist?” He stopped for a moment and noticed she was confused, still he went on without trying to explain himself better. “I would even go as far as to say that there is no such thing as luck. Luck is just probability of events. There could be a guy out there that has what appears to be the best luck ever. But in reality he just happens to catch the odds at the good end of probability.”
Laura scooted closer to Magnis before climbing on top of him. She leaned in touching nose to nose and he could smell cola on her breath. “So when you tell me,” she cracked a big smile, “that you used up all your luck finding me, that you’re really just full of shit and I’m falling for a sweet line you conjured up?”
Magnis does not miss a beat. “Only if you did fall for it.” He jolted forward and put his arms around her. She giggled as he tackled her messing up the blanket and putting them in the dirt. The blanket wagged in the wind before gaining total freedom and riding the breeze down onto the coastline. The shoebox also tipped over spilling its contents down the side of the hill.
He looked into her eyes and they twinkled as she smiled at him; they shared a long kiss. With a goofy look on his face he said, “If I’m so full of shit, then what do you call the woman that’s under the man full of shit?”
Laura rolled her eyes. “You’re so dumb.” They both laughed and the sounds fade as the bright sunny day goes black.
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