Class: Creative Writing

Requirements:

Word Limit: 1,500 words

Prompt: Write a scene where one of your characters showcases one of the Seven Deadly Sins. This can also be an excerpt from a larger chapter.

Wrath

Word Count: 1,370

I had covered my mother's cold body with a red quilt, too terrified to look at her corpse. She was still in her bed. I didn't know what to do when her heart finally stopped. I was like a small child; I could do was cry while I clutched handfuls of the bedsheets and her nightgown. I had spent the night sobbing and screaming, but now I could barely breath, let alone cry.

My eyes refused to focus on anything, and I could no longer feel the wool blanket that I had draped over my shoulders. It was almost as if the entire world around me had disappeared, leaving me to drift in the void.

Sitting on my mattress, I used all of my dwindling energy to keep myself upright. When I shut my eyes, all I could see was my mom's grey face, eyes shut and mouth gaping. I refused to fall asleep. Her voice before death was the last thing I wanted to hear.

In her last breath, my mother whispered to me, "I love you." She began to choke out my name but never finished it.

I was grasping her hands as she held them to her chest, crying and begging her to hold on. "Just five minutes, mom. Please, just hang on for a few minutes so I can get Francis. I'll get him, and it'll be okay, mom. You will be okay, mom, I promise. I just need you to hang on for five minutes." That's when I felt her heart stop. I never got the chance to tell her I love her too.

I was brought out of my nightmarish daze by a knock at the door. "Tallulah?" Francis called, "Can you please let me in?"

"Doors unlocked," I croaked.

The heavy wooden door scraped the floor as it opened. Francis's face fell immediately when he saw me. "What's the matter?" He asked.

I forced myself to look over at Mom's body. Her sickly figure was visible under the quilt. Tears were welling in my eyes and I tried hard to choke them back. A strangled cry escaped my lips and the tears began to fall.

Francis shut his eyes and bowed his head. "Oh Ana," he sighed. "I'm sorry Lou," he started, "I wish there was more I could have done..." he trailed off. He lifted his hand to his face and pushed his chubby cheeks up towards his temples. "I suppose it was just her time."

My body grew hot, starting from my chest outward. As the heat reached my face I was ready to erupt. Her time? It was her time? No, not at all. It was absolutely not her time. Four more months of the injections and she was supposed to get better. Mom was supposed to get better and go back to work. I was gonna eat full meals again because she wouldn't need the extra food. I was going to read a book on the weekends because I wouldn't have to look after her.

Francis' voice broke through my thoughts as he began to speak, "Lou? Darling, you look ill. Are you alright?" He asked me.

I nearly exploded. I sucked in choppy breaths and let out a ear piercing wail. I threw the wool blanket across the room. "It was not her time Francis!" I yelled, seething. "My mother was going to get better! She had four months left, Francis! Four more months and she was going to get better!" I let out another throaty scream before I could continue. "If that damned queen up there on her stupid throne would allow Outer City to receive medical treatment, my mother would be alive right now!" I wailed. "I heard she's using the doctors that served us to find an anti-aging miracle so she can rule indefinitely," I sobbed. "My mother is dead because of her!"

"There isn't anything Outer City could have done to stop her from passing that law," Francis said. His voice was scarily calm.

"We should've done something! We should do something now! There are people in Outer City dying left and right while Queen Alice sips aged wine and waits for her miracle cure!" I fumed. "That woman is pure evil and not one person is trying to stop her!"

"Lou, you and I both know that we can't do anything unless the people of Inner City know that she isn't good to us or her servants," Francis reasoned. He lowered himself into a wooden chair by the wood stove. "I know that you are friends with that Lovell boy. Surely you could convince him to help you."

"We're not friends," I grumbled. "He just asked me about Outer City for some story. Besides, he and the other royal families have it just as bad as we do. Queen Alice knows how to control a kingdom. Half the population thinks she is the best queen since Queen Camila, and they're from Inner City." I rolled my eyes. "They assign jobs because if Queen Alice can guarantee that only Inner City has well paying jobs, Outer City won't have the strength or money to fight back against her control."

"I know Lou, I know what she's doing and I can't stand it," Francis said. He added a log to the fire in the wood stove.

"Francis, why didn't you stay in Inner City when medical treatment was banned here?" I asked. I got up and joined him by the stove, picking up my blanket on the way.

Francis glanced at the cold, dead corpse of my mother. "I refused to let hundreds of citizens die at the hands of Alice. I figured if I could help at least fifty people from dying if they could be saved, I was doing something worth much more than the money I'd make in Inner City." His face fell to his lap. "I'm sorry I couldn't save your mother, Tallulah," he said solemnly.

We sat in silence for a moment. The sound of wood crackling to warm the house was the only sound. "I just don't think I can go on anymore," I admitted. I felt defeated and alone. All I had was Mom. Dad and my brothers died last fall during flu season.

"I will not sit here and see the last Foster give up," Francis began, "you find that Lovell boy, and you make him help you. You two need to convince enough Inner City folk that Alice is no good. Without Inner City on her side, she has nothing." He said.

I felt knots in my stomach. "I don't know Francis, I don't think I have that sort of affect on people," I said.

"I know you, Lou," Francis said, "You can command a room with a single move. You are the role model the people need. You are the voice of a movement, and you need to make sure that the people hear you." He took my hand in his. "You need to promise that you will change things. For your mother." A single tear ran down his cheek.

I nodded and squeezed his hand. "I promise," I told him. It was a promise I wasn't sure I could keep.

Everyday, I woke up and went to the studio for my mom. So I would get the little paycheck that would buy us bread and potatoes. I did everything in my life to make sure she wouldn't end up in the crowded cemetery with my father and my brothers. When they died, it was just the two of us.

Yes, I work for the company. I am an entertainer, but my job until now was to take care of my mom. Now, after losing her, I needed to wake up and work as hard as I can to change our kingdom. To make sure the Smiths down the street don't have to bury their son. To make sure that no family in Outer City had to work themselves to death to feed their kids. I want to ensure that farmers don't have to ship 90% of their harvest to the castle and Inner City. This is our kingdom as much as it is Alice's.