Tainted Sky Excerpt

[Major Spoiler warning to anyone in the midst or planning to read Tainted Sky; Rei’s Playlist. Free first draft vers. can be found here: https://theprose.com/book/1219/tainted-sky-rei-s-playlist ]

Dear awesome people at Trident Submissions,

Thank you for taking the time to consider my work, if you would like the full vers. of my manuscript please notify me and after I squeal and run around in circles for a while, I will happily send it to you along with my contact info.

Hope you enjoy :)

Optional context: Axel is the first person narrator to the scene below, as well as one of the two main characters of the story. After having fought a group of bad guys, Axel and friends are now running from the promise of reinforcements in a facility of dangerous people. For various reasons Axel is always wearing headphones. Always.

Mentioned characters | Main: Axel, Rei | Side: Sunal, Sheria, Keita, Kaia (Axel’s mom) | Guitars: Adara, Zeya

♩ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♩

Excerpt:

“C’mon there’s the exit!” yelled Sunal.

The short hall funneled out to a main entrance lobby, with a similar open space as the last. We all picked up the pace, running in the open with our weapons still unsheathed and unhidden; there was no point anymore. I pulled to the front in the formation Sunal had instructed despite my exhaustion. That’s when I saw a woman seated casually on a lounge chair right next to the main doors.

She got up, holding under her arm a book the size of a laptop, and stalked over to our exit, short business heels clacking, bob of mahogany hair bobbing, and an apathetic glare, rising where she stopped, to watch us approach.

With the half-rimmed glasses, the short hair curling towards her neck, the tight business suit and skirt combo, she gave the air of a strict elementary school teacher.

I didn’t stop running, nor did anyone behind me. Instead, I readied my blade and charged at her.

She simply stared at us and opened her book, cradling it in a single hand while pages flipped wildly on their own, and like that she waited, until our steps carried us within earshot. Then she uttered four simple words:

“Once upon a time-”

I let out a groan, as did everyone behind me who were likewise smacked by a surge of power. Similar to the photographer’s ability, I was pinned to one spot. Except I wasn’t exactly stuck in place when I fell to my knees. I wasn’t trapped in a stilled frame when the ground met my hands. My mind was flooded and sent elsewhere, warped to another state of existence, and I was thoroughly and utterly convinced that I’d been there all along...

Track 29

Axel woke up on a bright, brittle morning, just like any other day of winter. The outside’s crisp air had oozed into the cozy cool setting of his room, and although this was nothing new, he woke up scared and confused. He’d experienced a fearsome nightmare, one he had to squeeze out of his mind.

So realistic was this dream that he briefly questioned the authenticity of his current bedside reality.

Axel’s eyes made a quick sweep through his room, adrenaline coursing within, but everything was in place; from his favourite band posters, to his piano, to his guitars, Adara through Zeya. All was well. All was okay.

He sighed his relief and felt all his stress fade away.

The day pressed on like all the others. Axel had his breakfast, played some tunes, helped out at the storefront, composed some songs, and then went out to train.

Sheria was already out on the field when Axel arrived. She sat on the hill, absentmindedly poking at Keita’s bird, Rico, with a small branch. Silently, she waited in the chill for the rest of her team, without emotion or complaint. The colour around her seemed to wane.

“Hey,” called Axel, “Where’s Rei? I haven’t seen her all day.”

Sheria opened her mouth, but didn’t respond.

Sunal strode over from behind soon after, his face crestfallen and his spirits looked bleak. The sky looked the same.

“Where’s Rei?” I repeated. Something was wrong.

Nothing was wrong; “Rei,” began Sunal, his fist clenched tight on thin air, “was killed in our last mission, Axel. You know this.” Axel’s face drained, his eyes widened with newfound anger.

“What. Did you. Just. Say?” Axel shoved the words through his teeth, he needed Sunal to look him in the eye and repeat that line, but Sunal wouldn’t meet his gaze when he responded:

“No matter how many times I tell you, you always make yourself forget.”

Sheria stood by his back, backing him up, “It’s true Axel.” Her voice broadcasted through his headphones. “You don’t want to remember it. You’re choosing not t-”

“NO.” Axel yelled. “SAY WHAT YOU JUST SAID.”

This time it was Axel who couldn’t look Sunal in the eye, but Sunal complied. Those accursed words were uttered all over again.

“Rei was killed in our last mission.”

I ripped my sword from my pocket. Multiple shades of red throbbed over the blade at rocket-fast sequence. Its tip pointed to Sunal’s chest.

But Axel didn’t really draw his sword-

I did.

There was no sword to draw. Nothing was in Axel’s grasp. There never was because he had never been a sell-soul to begin with.

I am.

Axel’s hand shook as he felt around for the sword he thought he possessed, but there was nothing there.

“I told you, you don’t want to believe us, but it’s true.” Sunal was saying, but Axel couldn’t hear him. More accurately, he didn’t want to hear him. There was nothing standing between his ears and Sunal’s voice. That couldn’t be right.

It was right.

If he- If I wasn’t a sell-soul then-

Axel looked to his chest. A scraped-out hole replaced the spot his heart should’ve gone, like the silvery markings of a half-scratched lottery ticket.

Sheria joined in again, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder, “It wasn’t just Rei,”

Shut up.

“While we were gone, no one was here to protect the store.”

Stop talking!

“Some radicals broke in and- they-” Sheria choked up and moved away.

I couldn’t breathe.

Fine. Axel couldn’t breathe as Keita pulled up to his side, tugging his wrist warmer, and harnessing the tragic innocence of a confused child. Keita’s questions rang out into dead air, “Axel, Axel. Where’s Rei? Where’s your mommy?”

His words hit in the same way an orchestral hammer, meant for chimes, might beat against a timpani. It was painful to listen to, but felt off.

I froze in place, and then sank with a breath that felt drowned, until I was stooped down at the little boy’s level. I held the back of his head, clenched his hair as one would clench a weed, looked him square in the eye, and said, “You’re a lie.”

A silvery white line cracked through Keita’s face. None of this was real. The sky blistered up and pieces fell. ‘Rei’, my ‘mommy’; maybe they died in this world… but the “Little Rei” or “gif-girl” I knew; the ‘Kaia’ or ‘Aunty Kaia’ I’d grown accustomed to hearing, they were all very much alive and well, and I’d do everything I could to make sure they stayed that way.

I was a sell-soul. I had the power to protect. The path I took was more than just some story. I alone held the reins, my choices were my own, I’d decide where it ends or where it goes, and there was nothing and no one in this world or the next that could write my life away.

I felt my sword whole in my hand once again, and watched the remaining tidbits of a fake world crack to pieces. When I looked to the darkening void that was left of the broken sky, a tingling sensation grabbed hold of my body. Soon, I no longer felt a sword in my hand. It was gone as soon as it came. Instead what I felt was a cold, wet sweat along my temples and a blurring vision that was drawing in focus, clutching at it.

I was on my knees.

The woman with the storybook, now tucked beneath her arm, had tilted up my chin with a single wicked finger, making me face her as she spoke absently into an earpiece.

With shallowed breaths and a struggling gaze, I watched the book with irritation.

It really was just a story.

My gaze rose back to the woman.

But the track I was on now...

was so much more.

♩ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♩

Title: Tainted Sky; Rei’s Playlist

Genre: Cyberpunk, Action

Age range: Suitable for all ages

Word Count: Excerpt – 1280 words | Whole book – approx. 135 231 words

Author: Taija Sensei

Why my project is a good fit: Because no matter what, whether through this submission or the next, one way or another I will turn my stories into bestsellers. I have the devotion and determination to accomplish this and I’d both love and appreciate Trident’s support for my very first novel.

Additionally, I think the power of music and listening to the voices nearby is a theme that is heavily overlooked and I’d like to provide a cool, epic way of delivering this message. Ideally, this project would come with a soundtrack. Every chapter (or Track-ter as I’ve been calling them) would have its own piece of music (which I’ve been gradually composing). However, I’m willing to publish before releasing the soundtrack if necessary.

Hook: A hyperactive girl with a mental illness meets a music-dependent Sell-soul with a heart disease. Discover the power of music through this unique, action-packed, cyberpunk adventure with a chaotic side serving of loveable characters, rom-com, and epic, Scream-Out-Loud moments. Pun intended ;)

Spoilers:

In the cyber city of Ezveria, Reizetta Zykophona, or Rei for short, begins the story in Klover Community Centre where she’s found job-hunting. She finds herself in the midst of an orchestrated Radical hijacking where she is taken as hostage and then saved by a punkish looking boy named Axel.

He fights with headphones that connect to shapeshifting weapons. Rei labels him as a Sell-soul – a media-hidden internet conspiracy pertaining to people who sell half their souls to objects in exchange for inhuman power.

The two are separated after the incident, until Rei haphazardly comes across a music store that she discovers to be Axel’s home.

Through a single musical bonding session, the two quickly get immersed into Axel’s love for music which he shares with Rei, excitedly letting her try his headphones. In doing this, Axel falls unconscious, much to Rei’s distress, and his mother informs Rei that Axel has a heart disease and his sell-soul headphones is the sole item keeping him alive.

The following day Rei encounters ‘the gang’ consisting of three more sell-souls who all initially give Rei a hard time. Rei begins working at the music shop, eager (desperate) for friendship, and becomes better acquainted with the gang over time, until one of the members, Keita, gets targeted and loses his soul-item (equivalent to losing one’s soul).

That same night Rei gets a beat down from her abusive father who she’d been unconsciously erasing from the story. In her state of dejection, she receives a text from a semi-anonymous number who more-or-less tricks her into becoming a sell-soul via her phone. In finding out Rei received powers they all discover the person who tricked her was the friend they’d been searching for: Zedge.

The perspective switches to the past. In an SSRF facility (Sell-Soul Research Foundation) the reader learns how the gang came together and how they had to leave Zedge behind in their escape.

POV switches to Axel as the gang decides to train Rei, bringing her along on their missions to free captive sell-souls and put a stop to the SSRF.

Axel gets a heart attack and accidentally reveals to Rei that he is tired of living. Rei, who’d been viewing Axel as a superhero, gets a painful call to reality. Later Axel chances upon the sight of Rei getting abused by her father. He saves her, and in her fractured state she takes him to her mother’s grave site, where she reveals her true motives for becoming a sell-soul and her dire wish for change. In contrast, Axel gets scared by his own secret motives for fighting.

The team rescues Zedge who reveals how sell-souls came to be while he restores Keita’s soul. With the help of his hacking abilities the restored team infiltrate Stella Nova HQ, home to the founder of the SSRF and the police chief in cahoots with them. A battle between mind-controlled sell-souls and Axel’s gang take place and they scrape by until the police chief makes an entrance, who is revealed to be Axel’s father, the cause of his heart defect, and Axel’s true motive for fighting.

Rei begs him to stop seeking revenge, and in watching her get hurt Axel begins to fight for her sake rather than his own. In winning the battle, his headphones shatter and the gang scrappily rescue him, rushing him back to the shop as Rei sings to keep his heart alive. When it looks like he won’t survive, Rei disassociates, observing the misfortunate Zetta (in Reizetta) through a screen.

However, she’s able to break through her own mental TV and with Zedge’s help she sells the other half of her soul to save Axel’s life. (Rei survives too). Its later shown that their actions cause Ezveria to acknowledge the existence of sell-souls and Axel acknowledges that he loves Rei.

Also, they literally break the sky.

[Find out why in the unwritten ‘Tainted Sky; Axel’s Soundtrack’ coming to theatres near you. *snaps and points]

Target audience: YA

Bio: Taija the almighty awesome-tastic cool superior warrior musician dragon-tamer evil sensei ninja assassin spy in disguise – the first (AKA Taija Sensei), is your average realm jumper from another world. She originally journeyed through a portal to the human realm to track down an escaped dragon but lost her means of return and has been stuck in the human realm ever since. Despite being otherworldly, she’s pretty down to earth though does not comply well to societal norms. If you break her incantation spells of introversion, then she’d probably make you laugh. Often she’s told her imagination is quite impressive, but secretly she’s just telling non-fiction tales from her adventures in various realms. Music, video games, anime, and books have kept her sane in this foreign world where magic is much harder to find.

Platform: N/A

Education: I am currently enrolled in a Creative Writing Certificate program at University of Toronto, Continuing Studies

Experience: I’ve had my short story, ‘Achieving Peace’, featured in Polar Expressions; ‘Let There Be Dragons’ short story collection.

Writing Style: A fine line between child-like and sage-like. Fun, comedic, and informal at times but with powerful transitions to the meaningful and intense moments. “I want to be quoted” - Taija Sensei, so I aim to give those powerful one-liners that leave a mark.

If my writing can evoke the same kind of roller coaster of emotions as Marvel movies then it’s a success to me.

Personality: I’m sure my bio conveyed this >:)

Age: A little over two decades [insert picture of a wobbly old lady here]

Again, thank you for your time and consideration.

I mean it!

Taija Sensei