The phone rang, once. Then it stopped.<\/p>\n
The phone rang, once. Then it stopped. Again.<\/p>\n
A knock sounded at the door, twice. Then that stopped.<\/p>\n
A knock sounded at the door, thrice. Then a pause. <\/p>\n
A solitary thump. A body striking a door, perhaps?<\/p>\n
Somewhere, a window shattered. Then another.<\/p>\n
Plasterboard crumbled, leaving only bare beams. Dust choked the room.<\/p>\n
Furniture spun about the room, breaking apart. Then in another room.<\/p>\n
A beam broke with a snap. The ceiling fell in.<\/p>\n
A knock sounded at the door, twice. The door collapsed.<\/p>\n
The phone rang, once. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The phone rang, once. Then it stopped. The phone rang, once. Then it stopped. Again. A knock sounded at the door, twice. Then that stopped. A knock sounded at the door, thrice. Then a pause. A solitary thump. A body striking a door, perhaps? Somewhere, a window shattered. Then another. Plasterboard crumbled, leaving only bare […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[36,4],"tags":[21],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-6o","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":345,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=345","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":0},"title":"Breaking an Empire #5","date":"November 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The fifth installment of a 30k word short story set in The Four Part Land. It takes place 400 years in the past from the time of Tarranau and Chloddio, and details the collapse of Hymerodraeth Heula, the Empire of the Sun. \u201cOkay, sarge, who's the snotnose standing over there?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Four Part Land"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":476,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=476","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":1},"title":"Command Called","date":"April 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"For the first time in a long while, I've written another entry in the Jenny serial. With luck, I shall finally get around to finishing the story this time. It hurt. Badly. But JNY-35197 was still alive. He tried to move. Couldn't. The console had fallen on his legs, crushed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":584,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=584","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":2},"title":"The Final Test by Emma Newman","date":"January 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I'd like to welcome Emma Newman to The Four Part Land. Emma is the brilliant (and English) author of 20 Years Later\u00a0and The Split Worlds, and an author who is always a joy to read, and to talk to. Two years ago, back when I was first bumbling around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":183,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=183","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":3},"title":"Going To Hurt","date":"May 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I know it's been a couple days since the last JNY update, but I've been a little busy moving apartments and getting the Blog Carnival off the grounds. Also had to write my piece for that, which will appear tomorrow morning. I've been editing Chloddio's story, also, and am\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":415,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=415","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":4},"title":"The Village","date":"January 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The second of three stories I wrote last night in my return to flash fiction after a month or two off. The bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches, and the womenfolk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=130","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":5},"title":"The Sky Rained Ash","date":"May 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The second piece in the JNY serial. This isn't standalone, so make sure to read the first short. The desert was cold, and the sky was ash. A week had passed since JNY-35197 had stared at the meteors. Half the grunts were dead, not that Jenny had known them well.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}