Continuing on with the deeper dives into what lies between the pages of WHAT LIES BETWEEN: Odyssium Collection Volume 2, let's dive right into the collection's second story: I BEGIN.
I BEGIN isn't the first time I've used a strong female character as a lead, and it won't be the last. It might not even be the last time I use first-person as a way to tell the story. While I consider these collections a trip to the Bahamas away from the stresses of writing the BIG stories, I still like to challenge myself. I hadn't written in first-person for years, and figured I might as well knock the rust off those skills.
I BEGIN is the story a thirteen-year-old orphan girl who, after years of being passed over by prospective parents, is bought as a means to "keep the produce fresh," as it were. Who her new owners are, she does not know, but she--along with other purchases picked up along the way--finds herself in a training ground where only the strongest and smartest survive. There, she is given a name: G-9: quite literally, "G" for Girl, and 9, because she was ninth in line upon their initial inspection formation.
As the story progresses and the years pass by for G-9, she comes to learn that she and all the others are being trained to become immersion agents, or spies. Time, however, is not on her side. The barracks are emptying fast. Her fellow trainees are either being sent off on their inaugural missions, or they're simply vanishing...being disappeared by the very organization that purchased them. G-9 has to make an impression, and doing so will require her to venture out on her own to prevent the extinction of a nomadic underrace...an underrace called the Orino.
So, those are the basics for the the collection's second novella, and BIG points to anyone who got the significance of that last line. If you didn't, you need to read more of my work, because it's all connected...sort of like the MCU, back when it was good (or at least more consistently good).
The first-person perspective gives it a lot more of an intimate feel in this very dog-eat-dog reality that G-9 finds herself in upon arriving at the compound. We also dabble a bit at the edges of a love story, experiencing it firsthand through G-9 who, as a girl who grew up unwanted, is forced to navigate those uncharted waters alone.
Oh, but don't you worry, boom-boom 'splodey action lovers...
...I didn't forget about you. The compound is deadly. The outside world, as G-9 finds out, is even deadlier. Find out just how deadly on April 3rd when WHAT LIES BETWEEN releases.
Till next time, take care.
-C