Ariel

Assignment III—Opening scene. Chapter one The dry wind stirred, carrying in its breath a warning. As usual, I ignored the spine-tingling feeling as I gripped the balcony railing, leaning into the gust as it swept over the rooftop, gritty metal biting into my palms. Below, the parking lot buzzed with life. I scanned the crowd, searching for a face I could barely remember. I told myself it was pointless. Still, I looked—right up until the old railing groaned beneath me. I stepped back. It seemed wasteful to die now, after spending so much of my life trying to survive. It wasn’t the wind’s warning or the size of the crowd that caused the choked, lung-shrinking sensation that tortured me before every performance. It was knowing that once I took the stage and opened my mouth to sing, I’d feel everything. Every single emotion as if I were the audience. The flutters of blooming love. The frustration of not being enough. The fear of being alone. Everything. I’d feel it all, like the invisible veil that had once separated me from another’s private world disappeared, and their every emotion seeped into me, becoming my own. My mother warned me this would happen. She said that when it started, he would come for me. That’s why I locked it down, pushed it deep. Because whatever’s in my blood—whatever made me different—was the reason they took her. I inhaled sharply, the memory rushing in like a cold current. She’d shoved me through the trapdoor just in time, far enough to be safe—but close enough to hear her screams. Then came the silence. The rooftop trembled with the thump of the opening band, shaking the memory loose. But the guilt stayed. It always did. I was the reason she was gone. I should’ve been backstage warming up, but I needed to breathe. To steady the pounding in my chest. I glanced upwards, where the night sky looked like handfuls of tiny, light-filled diamonds were scattered across the dark expanse. Those bright flecks left me feeling scared and alone. Just like I'd felt the day I followed the river to the barn where she promised she'd find me if we were ever seperated. She never came. I stayed there until hunger made staying impossible. That was four years ago. Now here I was, surviving in the small town of Prescott, Arizona, hiding from an invisible enemy. Survival had gotten easier. My gigs didn’t pay much, but they kept me fed. Without a birth certificate or any formal proof that I existed; a normal job was out of reach. I kept the promise I made to my mother to stay hidden, even if it meant she couldn’t find me either. The metal door to the rooftop burst open with a loud slap, jarring me back to the present and shattering the thoughts of my mother and her warnings. “There. You. Are,” Mark panted, one hand on his side. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” I shrugged, eyes back on the stars. “Taking a moment, I guess.” I didn’t have to look at him to feel his frustration. “You know the show’s about to start, right?” “Yeah. I know.” I met his eyes. There was pain in them. Some of it my doing. He crossed his arms, covered in swirls of ink, firmly against his chest, and scowled at the starry sky, as if it were to blame for my absence. “Joslyn, I know you don’t like talking about your past. I’m not gonna push you. Just… I get it, okay? There’s not much to say about my genetic donors either.” He kicked at a broken planter. “Screw them. Our blood doesn’t define us. What we do does.” Except in my case, the defects in my blood were the reason for my mother’s absence—and the reason we were always running. But I couldn’t blame Mark for believing what he did. He’d been abandoned by the very people biologically programmed to love him, and it had messed him up. Bad. I guess what pulled us together was the one thing that filled those cracks—music. “Yeah, maybe,” I muttered. I didn’t agree, but I wasn’t in the mood for one of Mark’s lectures. I brushed past him and took the broken stairs two at a time. Backstage, Haven and TJ were already waiting. Haven was a sharp-tongued tomboy with mile-long legs and fingers that could set a guitar on fire. She’d joined the band two months ago and didn’t take crap from Mark or anyone. TJ was our drummer. He wasn’t great, but being Mark’s best friend bought him a spot in the band and a permanent place in Mark’s oversized shadow. We were an odd bunch, but somehow, we packed the Electric Theater every Friday night. I climbed the wooden steps to the stage, Mark trailing behind. The second I stepped into the lights, everything else fell away. I sang about pain. About loneliness. About romantic love—a feeling I’d only ever known through lyrics. Even if love itself felt like a myth, the words were real. And they were mine. Mark waited for his cue and then joined in, adding his voice to my own. A harmonic melody filled the theater. His raspy voice mixed well with mine, or so people said. And then it hit—that invisible thread snapping taut between me and the crowd. I felt the jagged grief of the girl with blue hair in the far corner. The quiet rage from the boy with a baseball cap pulled low, hiding a fresh bruise. The dizzy, rising joy from the couple swaying near the stage, clinging to each lyric like it was written for them. Their feelings washed through me, powerful and unfiltered. To keep from drowning in them, I funneled every emotion into each high falsetto, each held note, every closing cadence. The lights brightened. The audience became a blur of movement and color. All except one. A man in a suit stood still among the sea of teenagers. He wasn’t singing. His eyes never left mine. It wasn’t just his clothes that made him stand out, it was the wave of emotion coming off him. Overwhelming love. Relief. Like he knew me. Like he’d been searching for me. My voice caught—just a beat off. Mark shot me a look. I forced myself back into harmony, hoping no one noticed. Minutes later, the man disappeared into the crowd, but the weight of his emotions lingered, rattling through me long after the music stopped.

Assignment 1: Story statement A gifted teen returns to a hidden, advanced world to awaken her power and stop a coming war. Assignment 2: Antagonistic Forces The main antagonist in Joslyn’s story is Jonathon, a charismatic but ruthless Ambassador who uncovers the secret of her forbidden origins and mixed genetics. In a society where power and status hinge on genetic purity, Jonathon views Joslyn as a dangerous anomaly. Fearing she could expose cracks in the system he’s helped build, and ignite rebellion, he’s determined to control her at any cost, even if it means destroying her before others learn the truth. A secondary antagonist is Jonathon’s son, Ezra, a cunning and arrogant young man who thrives on control and domination. He masks his cruelty behind his charming, good looks, but beneath the surface is a deep hunger for power and status. Ezra sees Joslyn’s radical belief that faith and inner strength can reshape genetic destiny as a dangerous challenge to the strict geneticly-gifted hierarchy he is determined to rule. Assignment 3: Create a title Inner World Assignment 4. Genre and Comparables The genre for my manuscript is YA romantasy. I used The Powerless series by Lauren Roberts as a comparable title. The love trope is similar, as my protagonist falls for someone who is initially positioned as the enemy. They are also similar in that the protagonist must enter a grueling competition to gain the influence she needs to stop her enemies. However, unlike Powerless, my main character is inherently powerful but must learn to unlock her abilities over time. A second comparable is the Delirium series by Lauren Oliver. My novel echoes its exploration of a society that has outlawed love and the moral and social consequences of removing such a fundamental human experience. However, while Delirium leans more dystopian, my manuscript is based in science fiction and takes place in a hidden world inside our own, where society is shaped by genetic engineering and controlled through selective pairings. Assignment 5: Core Wound and Primary Conflict Pulled into a dazzling world beneath the Earth, a teen girl must hide the power she blames for her mother’s disappearance, survive a brutal competition, and leave the boy she loves—before the world she never knew existed destroys the one she left behind.Earth’s crust—she must hide her identity, win a grueling competition, and try to abandon the boy stop Inner World from obliterating all life on Assignment 6: Conflicts Internal Conflict: Joslyn has always known something is different about her. It’s why she remembers star-shaped cities and nights lit by a purple moon, memories no one else seems to share. And it’s the reason why she and her mother have lived in hiding, her mother warning her never to reveal her identity because of her blood. But Joslyn doesn’t understand how dangerous her difference is until her mother goes missing. Wracked with guilt, she begins to believe that whatever lies within her is to blame. That dormant power, however, begins to surface, slowly, and only when she sings. Triggering Scene: After her mother’s disappearance, Joslyn provides for herself by performing at a local concert hall. During one performance, her awakening ability begins to stir. She can feel the emotions of the crowd: their thoughts, their energy, their longing. Most notably, she senses the love and profound relief radiating from a mysterious man in a suit who clearly doesn’t belong. It’s then she realizes: this is only the beginning of the power her mother warned her about. She’s been found and now she must run again. Second Conflict: When Joslyn returns to Inner World and meets Oliver, her assigned trainer, she begins to develop feelings for him. But the emotions she’s buried for so long resurface with fear. The choice to love is outlawed in Inner World, but more than that, Joslyn is convinced she doesn’t deserve it. She believes that anyone who cares about her ends up hurt because of the power inside of her. Driven by guilt and fear, she tries to push Oliver away protecting him from herself, and from a system that would punish them both for love outside of being genetically paired. Assignment 7. Setting The story begins in the quiet desert town of Prescott, Arizona, where Joslyn hides out, hoping her missing mom will one day return. It’s there, while singing at a local theater, that she realizes something’s off when she starts to feel the audience’s emotions and even hear their thoughts. The setting changes when her long-lost father shows up and takes her to Inner World, a hidden, high-tech society built inside of our own. Inner World is divided into 36 provinces based on different genetic abilities, with cities shaped like star formations and powered by sustainable tech. Machines called re-atomizers create food and clothes from thin air, and everyone’s movements are tracked by biometrics. Portals between the two worlds are locked down and protected, and the entire society is ruled by a powerful Council comprised of the most genetically gifted. To earn a spot, you have to fight for it in a brutal competition that proves your strength. With its glass-clear oceans, vibrant skies, castle-like buildings, and people who barely age, Inner World looks like paradise. But Joslyn begins to question how perfect it really is when your path, your partner, and your future are all chosen based on your predestined genetic blueprint—and what will happen when she discovers she holds the power to rewrite it all.