And seriously, it’s all PG Holyfield’s fault.  If you want to know why, go check out the Balticon pictures on Flickr.

Starting count: 0

Ending count: 2082

New words: +2082

Opening line:

We lost three the first night.

Ending line:

Warm fingers interlaced with mine, distracting me.

Darling:

The list took me up to 7A, where we had two more cases of the wasting illness that had checked in the night before. One lovely blond who barely cracked open her eyes when I slipped my needle into the line in her arm – she’d be dead before morning, if I read her right. Her skin was translucent, nearly transparent in the soft grey light, and her breathing was so light that her chest barely moved. Twenty-two, according to her chart, and single. A diamond ring glinted on the third finger of her left hand – she was engaged. Poor kid. Never be a bride now.

The other one, though, she was a fighter. She woke up as I came in, sitting upright, her bright eyes searching frantically in the semi-darkness for something. No, someone. When she saw me, she sagged back down, desolate. “I thought he was coming back,” she said, her voice hoarse and yet somehow sexy, even though I don’t swing that way. It was a voice full of whiskey and promises, as my grandfather used to say.

**

I THINK it’s horror.  I know it’s creepy.  Now you know as much as I do.

Oh, it’s got a title, too.  Life Thief.