Sorry for the long setup! You can skip to the content if you want! It's down below, listed under the heading "CHAPTER 1."

PROMPT (from post/95938153285/challenge-prompt):

"Randomly select two or three books you haven't read yet. Using only what you know about them from the back cover summaries and your own assumptions, try to find some way to combine what you think you know about the plots into one new, original idea. For a greater challenge, try to select books from entirely different genres.

"If you do end up using the ideas you come up with, be sure to give credit where it is due!"

BOOKS SELECTED:

1) The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Summary: "A. J. Fikry's life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over-and see everything anew."

2) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer

Summary: "Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

"An inspired innocent, Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating, and hilarious as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly away? What if you could actually hear everyone's heartbeat? His goal is hopeful, but the past speaks a loud warning in stories of those who've lost loved ones before. As Oskar roams New York, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity who are all survivors in their own way. He befriends a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, and lovers enraptured or scorned. Ultimately, Oskar ends his journey where it began, at his father's grave. But now he is accompanied by the silent stranger who has been renting the spare room of his grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up his father's empty coffin."

MY STORY IDEA:

After the death of her mother, whose lifelong dream of owning a bookstore had gone unfortunately awry when a chain store moved in down the block and sales went into a seemingly endless freefall, nineteen-year-old Raven Reyes receives a mysterious package at the bookstore and is sucked into an urgent, secret search through time. With a chance to make her life over, ardent tinkerer Raven roams through time on a mission to find the lock that fits the mysterious key she receives, encountering a motley assortment of humanity who are all survivors in their own way. Ultimately, Raven ends her journey where it began, at her mother's grave. But now she is accompanied by Lexa Woods, who has been renting the spare room of her grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up her mother's empty coffin.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

AU. Raven/Lexa pairing. Slow burn. A healthy smattering of coarse language. And possibly a sex scene or two.

Please note that I have not read either of these books, I have never set foot in New York, I have not watched The 100 in full, and I have no idea what I'm doing.

So…here we go.

CHAPTER 1:

"Raven!"

"Fuck!" Raven yelled, having banged her head—hard—against the book shelf she was crouched uncomfortably under. "What is it?" she yelled toward the front of the bookstore, rubbing at her aching skull.

"I told you to stop wasting money on these toys! You're not a child anymore, and we have to watch our savings now that your mother's gone!" her grandmother scolded.

Raven rolled her eyes and dropped the screwdriver in her hand, abandoning her unfinished invention to retrieve the latest part she'd ordered. "Thanks, Gram," she muttered, grabbing the brown parcel and making an abrupt U-turn.

She plopped down onto the floor next to her work station, careful to avoid the offending shelf, and ripped open the package.

"Ooh," she murmured, pausing in her unwrapping to play around with the bubble wrap she'd uncovered—pop! pop! pop! She grinned down at the plastic, setting it aside for fun later and forging onward. There sure was a lot of wrapping for a hunk of steel, she thought, struggling to peel off a piece of tape hindering her quest. When she'd finally gotten all the damn wrapping off, she stared down at the golden key in her hand. "What the…"

eBay was the worst, she thought, feeling sorely disappointed—she'd needed that part for her new invention!—when, suddenly, the key began glowing in her hand, causing her to drop it as though burned by the light.

But lying on the dingy, blue carpet, the key looked like any ordinary key, and she scoffed internally at herself—she was really starting to lose it. She picked it up again, turning it over between her fingers. Yep, just a nondescript house key. She closed her fist around it and moved to clear up the mess of packaging she'd now have to redo and ship back.

Light, however, began shining through the cracks between her fingers, and, upon opening her palm hesitantly, she saw that the key really was glowing. But now that she looked closer, she could see that the light spelled something out: Veronica Reyes. Her mother.

Well, shit!