Blood & Chlorophyll Ch. 09 - Reflection

This was a tough one, wasn't it?

I'll admit, I wasn't fully prepared for just how grim this chapter was. It sort of came up naturally when I looked at the context. I've spent the entire book so far stressing that Katrina can't survive on pig's blood, but she's also clearly alive and well four years after the Change. She has a lot of pent-up trauma, is scared to be close to people, and seems intensely aware of what might happen if she loses control.

So, all things considered, there was really only one way for this chapter to play out.

This was also a chance to write something very new. Though I've flirted with tragedies before, like the ending of SaS Book One, they tend to be single instances of action. In Katrina's case, she basically had a year and a half of constant, visceral tragedies that continued to add to her own guilt. I tried my best to strike a decent balance; I didn't want to show too much gore, but I needed to show enough to tell the story.

Thankfully, I establish in Chapter One that Katrina sees the world through a musical lens, and this made it much easier for me to slightly abstract the events. Describing the sound of blood rushing through veins using music made it a bit more poetic, sure, but it's also a little easier to say someone's song ended rather than saying they just died.

Another challenge on my part was how to portray Katrina. As one of my main characters, I obviously want people to continue liking her. However, I was scared that seeing her history might scare people off, and start to see her as hypocritical or selfish. This is why I took every chance I could to stress that she did her best to keep things under control. Jackson the Beastkin was a brute abusing his power, and she was hoping to scare him off his tactics while also grabbing a quick snack, but her self control wasn't quite strong enough yet.

The first half the book focused pretty exclusively on the tragedy of being forced to hunt for blood, but sadly, I always knew that Kat's trauma went deeper than that. She meets Sera because she's still letting herself visit bars, pretending to be part of a community. This is fairly different from the Katrina we see at the beginning of the book, the person who only leaves home to visit the hospital or go to work.

One thing I wanted to stress was that Kat and Sera got along really well. By the time they met, Kat was already pretty scared of getting close to people, but she was still willing to try. Sera, on the other hand, was outgoing, excited, and even a little pushy. The perfect partner for someone who's scared to put herself out there. Plus, as another Bard, Sera was able to introduce Kat to some of the details of her Class. This part of the story was honestly much easier for me to write, as writing romance comes pretty naturally to me.

The trick was figuring out the details of how everything blew up. I tease that Sera is Mutable, but that's a trait I haven't really explored much in Blood & Chlorophyll. Otterly has briefly touched on it, but even in this chapter I don't fully explain what it means. I think I did a good job of setting up the context, but I might as well lay it out here in case anyone's curious.

In the world of Becoming Monsters, people cannot change Races. In incredibly rare situations, they might be able to advance, such as a Succubus becoming a Greater Succubus, but that's it. Humans don't get as many Racial Traits, and a very small percentage of them have the Mutable trait, which makes them susceptible to Races that can stereotypically create more of themselves by turning Humans. Vampires, Werewolves, things like that. Because the Mutable trait is so rare, and the Change introduced so much confusion into the world, it took years for people to figure out it. Many Humans probably changed Races without even realizing that their Mutable trait is what made that possible.

Anyways, back to the story, Sera's Mutable trait doesn't treat her well here. Although we see hints that she's a little bored of being a Human, the process of transforming into a Vampire clearly takes a lot of out her. I did my best to make that scene feel chaotic and messy, but also to show how hard changing Races can be for people. Much like Katrina, Sera suddenly found herself in a situation where she was probably starving, and she lashed out as a result.

I'm happy I got to end the chapter on somewhat of an optimistic note. Katrina finally gains access to the blood donations, which will hopefully let her begin to put her life back together.

I'm also very proud of my choice to not include music for this chapter. I wanted to talk to everyone directly, to stress that self-harm is a serious topic. After showing Katrina attempting to walk into the sunlight, a scene that absolutely brought me to tears writing it, I wanted to build a bit of separation between myself and the story. Granted, I still had Kat make an appearance, but it was minor.

I hope this chapter wasn't too much of a downer, and even if it was, I promise I'm not going to write anything like that again for a long time.

And seriously, if you're struggling with depressive thoughts, or are considering hurting yourself, there are people ready to help.

Nyx <3