Asyiqin: Novel Opening and Closing

Opening:

‘Again,’ she thought as she slowly took her pale hand away from the window. She sighed deeply as the amplest hint of light rays went through her hand as if it was made of glass. As usual, she felt nothing in this world. She was neither warm nor cold. She couldn’t remember the last time she was woken from her slumber. It was probably no different from what is happening to her now. She drifted from the window allowing the hem of her long, white gown to hang elegantly above the floor and went callously through the door.

‘Voices’ she thought to herself, feeling annoyed, ‘there shouldn’t be any in my abode.’ She went past the mirror in the hallway and, as expected, it showed no reflection of her. She was neither living nor dead. The origin of her kind was not made clear but she would only be woken up when there is an abrupt ripple in the ambience threatening the world’s peace and serenity. She approached the hushed voices and found a strange group consisting of what seemed to look like treasure hunters, or more accurately, thieves and sinners. She took a good look at them and smirked mischievously as she faded away into the dark corners of her sacred abode.

Closing:

‘The darkness is fading once again,’ she thought somberly, ‘I should be rejoicing in the fact that my time to slumber from this world has come again.’ She successfully protected the source of calamity from the hands of the treasure seekers and it was time to sleep until the next batch of foolish thieves somehow ended up discovering the myth and decided to prove it to the world. She sighed and thought about how every last one of the treasure hunters fell into the illusion of her will and were defeated.

Although, she found it hard to forget the face of a particular genius from the group who cried out one of her many names before he fell into the dark chasm and she almost pitied his fate and forgave him, almost. She could never forget his expression which was not of fear nor anger but of content. ‘Que sera sera,’ she thought. The scenery quickly changed with her last thought. She was now surrounded by lush tress and berry-filled bushes. She could feel the warm rays basking her with sunlight and she smiled as she made her way through the sweet-smelling forest.

Sharifah: Novel Opening and Closing

Opening

It was A Moment. One of those cinematic, unforgettable, timeless Moments which are imprinted forever in our minds. The excitement and the total force of hopeful expectations knock the winds out of you, leaving you breathless. For that Moment, everything is perfect and naïveté is still intact. Anything is possible. It really was, for that single sweet summer anyway.

It was a quiet Moment, just me and Larissa on the flight to Boston at the end of the school year. Then it dawned on me that the nervous excitement I felt was, for once, not reflected in her. Our almost psychic bond that was the basis of our friendship… Could it survive being uprooted and placed across the Atlantic for three months?

Ending

As I sat there, watching the waving figures becoming blurred and diminished in the rearview mirror, I felt as if a part of me had been torn out. Severed. Was it just the way I saw the world or had the world itself changed, making everything seem different? I was the same person, aside from the missing part.

All the things I had tried to keep from happening had completely disregarded me and kept going, at full speed. Yet it had not ended in tragedy. We had all hurt each other and thought it was all over, for all of us. Mostly, I think we hurt ourselves. Still, it was the sweet summer I had hoped for and it was not over yet.

Ramzul: Novel Opening and Closing

Opening

They say that the world waits for no man. If that’s true, what is it waiting for? It’s been waiting for something – but I don’t want to wait anymore. I’ve been waiting for it since the twelfth of February. It’ll be the twelfth of February again in a few days time. It’ll be the same day a week after that. I’ve been waiting a long time for the week to change. And in that time, nothing has changed.

Closing

Snow. Those little white flakes that fell to the ground. That – was snow.

In that one week, it never snowed. It was nippy but it never snowed. But, right now, it’s snowing.

I feel rather odd right now. I was feeling something akin to elation. And yet, I could also feel regret. I’m baffled by this. If the world waited just one more week, I wouldn’t feel like this. I would have waited even longer than that. As long as things didn’t go on this way, I would have waited. And in spite of that, the world wouldn’t wait anymore.