NADIA Picture Tour: Stop 1 (The picture of the story, and the story of the picture)

Hearing: “Nadia? Nadia, I need you to open your eyes for me, please.” The gentle male
voice sounded alien to her ears, as if from a great distance. Who's Nadia?

Comprehension: She understood someone was talking to someone named...Nadia.

Sensation: A gentle touch registered on her arm as the voice spoke again. “Nadia? Open
your eyes, dear.”

Identity: She was Nadia. There was something in her mind, a nagging feeling that it
wasn't right, couldn't be right. But the man insisted. “Open your eyes, Nadia.”

Awareness.

 Nadia complied, though with some effort. The lids were stiff, unresponsive at first. She
had to think about moving them, and finally she forced them open. After a few more
experimental blinks, a small but intense white light pierced into her eyes...

---Becoming NADIA, Chapter One

Ah, welcome, fellow castaways on the third rock from the sun, adrift through the darkness of space. Starting this week, I'm going to take you on a journey through my Thriller series The NADIA Project. We'll go in roughly chronological order, but only loosely. The idea is to show you, up close and personal, the locations of certain scenes in my series.

The idea came to me when I was offered a chance to see the area firsthand as part of my day job, and I am pleased to say I found all the locations I needed, to give you, my readers and fans, an awesome visual of the story arc.

Now, mainly, the pictures are all centered around the Washington, DC area, because that's where most of the stories take place. Of course, the stories actually spread out all over the world, from Oregon to Nevada to Tahiti and the Czech Republic.

So these posts are going to comprise two parts: The picture of the story, and the story of the picture.

This first "picture of the story" is Dr. Petr Hamund, bringing his creation to life in her first moments as the light shines in.

The "story of the picture" is simple: It was an accident.

I was taking pictures of data tags on equipment I was in the process of testing for certification, and my thumb accidentally slid across the little button on the screen of my phone that flips the camera from forward-facing to rear-facing, and then snapped its own little picture.

I was going to delete it, but then I noticed the awesome pattern of the glare spots, and it jumped out at me that I was unwittingly one of my own characters.

So enjoy.

Next up, we take another trip.