Prompt: Write about two of your established characters (who know each other in our world, or at least their canon world) meeting for the first time in a parallel universe.
I love the concept of parallel universes, and some of my favorite books use them really well. I used my main protagonist and her potential love interest for this short scene. It's set kind of in conjunction with something that happened in my original draft of this book, but I decided recently I was probably going to radically change all of that, so now it could definitely happen in a parallel universe where she and this guy had never met before and where she still had to be on the run (the reasons for which I'm keeping a secret). Anyways, enough background. Here's the piece. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!
In another life, she is the rain-soaked girl who
stumbles into the diner in a Kentucky town too small to remember. The diner is
dead that night, so he’s busied himself with organizing the silverware. When
the bell over the door jangles, he looks up, the customary greeting on the tip
of his tongue.
His words freeze, and he can’t get even a simple
“hi” out. Despite the hair plastered to her head and her red nose, she is
lovely. He wipes his hands on his apron and grabs the spare hand towels. She
accepts them with chattering teeth and a quick smile that restarts his heart.
“What are you doing out on a night like this?” he
manages.
“Long story,” she says. “Do y’all have hot
chocolate?”
“Yeah. It’s just Swiss Miss, though. Nothing
fancy.”
“That sounds perfect.”
She sits at one of the barstools at the counter. He’s
alone at the diner with her; ordinarily, he wouldn’t be, but Hector ran home to
check on his wife and kids since their roof leaks a lot. Neither of them
thought they’d get any customers on a night like this.
He heats up a cup of cocoa quickly and slides it in
front of her. She wraps her hands around it for warmth and stares into the
steam rising. Then she stirs her spoon round and round in the cup. Water
droplets are beading at the end of her hair, and she’s still shivering a bit.
Her jacket is drying on the seat next to her, but there’s nothing she can do
about her damp skirt and boots.
“I’m kind of on the run,” she says eventually, just
after he’s returned to the silverware. Her quiet voice, rusty with disuse,
startles him. “The police aren’t going to come after me…I don’t think…but this
rain is making things a little difficult.” She looks up at him, and her blue
eyes are surprisingly sad. “You’re not harboring a wanted murderer or anything,
I promise. I wish I could tell you more, but I’ve kind of been taught my whole
life to keep things secret.”
She looks back down at the cup of hot chocolate and
laughs, almost to herself. “And here I am, breaking the number one
rule—confiding in a stranger. I can only imagine what my mother would say.”
He reaches up and grabs another cup. He heats the
milk in the microwave and then tosses in the powdered chocolate mix. All the
while, she’s quiet and the rain beats against the windows. He catches her
glancing over her shoulder, although the parking lot is too dark to see much.
Still, he gets the sense she can make out every detail.
When his hot chocolate is ready, he leans his
elbows across from her on the counter and takes a long sip from his mug.
“I’m Sam O’Hara. I’ve lived here my whole life, and
I’ll probably die here even though I want nothing more to get out and become a
film actor. There. I’m not a stranger anymore,” he says.
Her eyes sparkle, and he wonders if she’s a special
agent, a spy, a trained assassin, or just a girl who longs for something more,
just like he does.
“I’m Avi,” she says. Her lips part, as if she wants
to say something more. It looks like she changes her mind before she says,
“What’s stopping you from leaving this town?”
“Money, mostly. You don’t earn big bucks waiting
tables at a place like this, and rent in California is killer. I have to save
for years before I’ll be able to afford to live out there.”
She nods. Then she shoves her empty cup towards him
and starts riffling through her bag. “Thanks for the cocoa. It looks like the
rain is letting up, so I should go while it’s still dark. How much do I owe
you?”
He waves a hand. “It’s on the house.”
Her gaze flits up; her eyes are wide. “Really, I
can pay.”
“Fine, give me a dollar and we’ll call it even. It
was nice to have the company, even for a little bit,” he replies.
He turns to put their cups on the pass-through to
the back; he’ll wash them later. When he turns back, she’s scribbling on a
piece of paper.
“Here,” she says. “If you ever make it out to
California, and I’m not in jail, message me at this username on Twitter. You
seem like a cool guy, Sam O’Hara.”
She stands and pulls on her coat. Her lip curls at
the damp fabric, but she doesn’t say anything. As she heads out into the rain,
she tosses a wave over her shoulder.
It’s not until after she leaves that he finds the
stack of money under the towels she used to dry off. He stares at the bills and
figures it must be a couple thousand dollars at least. He wonders if she robbed
a bank, and he tentatively touches the bills. The idea of charity doesn’t sit
all that well with him, but his dream means everything to him. Besides, if
everything works out like he hopes it will, he can always pay her back. He can
consider this a loan, an investment of sorts.
Maybe he’ll see her in California sooner rather
than later.
So what would a prompt about your OCs in an alternate world produce?
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