I'm constantly working on what seems like a million stories at once. Here is an excerpt of one I'm working on right now about a woman who has the power to help others heal themselves through pulling at their auras. Be mindful that this is a rough draft and that it's not been edited or formatted. Your comments and feedback are most welcome!
I See You (Working Title)
Rosa saw the good in everyone. Literally. Ever since she could remember, the glow coming from people, in degrees of intensity and varying colors, clued her in to the benevolence of that said person.
Standing over the hospital bed of a sleeping Thadeus McFerrin, she discerned a swirling energy composed of dark blues and grays with a soft pale yellow peeking through.
"You poor man." She whispered as she caressed his wispy white hair.
Something had happened to this man that caused his light to be taken over, but she was determined to extract it from him. Rosa rubbed her work-worn hands together vigorously until she could no longer tolerate the heat that formed in her palms. Slowly, she hovered them over Thadeus' frail body, starting from his crown, moving down to his heaving torso, and ending at the tips of his yellowed nail bed. She repeated the process over and over, willing the yellow thread she spotted to come to the surface. After thirty minutes, she felt her hands overheating and her energy depleting. All she saw around the old man were the dark swirls, as if her efforts had emboldened them to overtake the yellow thread.
"Don't worry, Thadeus, I'll be back in the morning." She patted his wrinkled arm and left to talk to his family in the hospital waiting room.
"How is he?" His daughter Miranda inquired as soon as she saw Rosa emerge from the room. Rosa could see swirls of greens and golds around the petite blonde.
"No change. I'm hoping I can see him again tomorrow."
Thadeus's son Clive cast a disdainful look at Rosa, the same pattern of swirls as his father floating around him, except the threads of yellow were woven throughout. When his sister had hired her, he had tried to stop Rosa from coming to their father's bedside, calling her a charlatan and a crook. He opened his mouth to say something, probably to berate her, but Miranda cut in even before anything came out of his mouth.
"Thank you Rosa. We'll be waiting."
Thadeus wasn't the first person she had failed with her gift. She still had another chance to help him heal, but she recognized the signs. He was too tired and his aura too corrupted to respond. Her father had been the same in the end.
Rosa trudged up her third-floor walk up thinking about what she could have done differently to save her father. But he had always been stubborn and refused to listen. She would have thought that having the gift himself would make it easier to grasp the necessity of keeping his aura in balance. But just like Thadeus, her father's aura had lost all its shine, all its life. And so had he in the end. Bitter and sad, the cancer had eaten at his insides until the darkness took over him.
That's it for now. What do you think?
