08-31-2020, 09:54 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Amatic+SC" rel="stylesheet"><style> #waltbackground{position:relative;z-index:1;width:550px; padding:20px;padding-top:40px;padding-bottom:0px; background:#261a28 url('https://i.postimg.cc/hjZp94x4/fire-man.jpg')no-repeat;background-size:100%; box-shadow:0px 0px 15px #000;border:2px solid black;} #waltcontainer{position:relative;z-index:3;width:500px;margin-top:300px;padding:10px;background:#b2bac7;box-shadow:0px 0px 6px #000;opacity:0.6;border:1px solid black;border-top:0px border-bottom:0px;}#container p{margin:0;} #waltmessage{position:relative; z-index:10;text-align:justify; padding:30px 20px 10px 20px; font:12px 'Times new roman', serif; line-height:1.25; color:#020a20;}#waltname{position:relative;bottom:20px;font:52px;font-family: 'Times new roman', cursive; text-shadow:2px 2px 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); color:#000;letter-spacing:6px;text-align:center;}#waltquote1{z-index:35;position:absolute;top:288px;right:px;left:40px;color:#c5cdd8;font:40px 'Amatic SC', cursive;opacity:0.8;}#waltquote2{z-index:35;position:relative;margin-top:-20px;margin-bottom:14px;color:#020a20;font:15px 'Dosis', sans-serif;opacity:0.4;}</style><center><div id="waltbackground"><p id="waltquote1"></i></i>Sabrael</p><div id="waltimg"></p></div><div id="waltcontainer"><div id="waltgradient"></div><p id="waltmessage">In the sudden silence that stretches on, he has ample time to think about what has happened so far.
He doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want to count each and every new scar he has earned both physically and mentally in such a short amount of time. He should be moving. He should be simultaneously distracting and preparing himself by walking around and learning everything he can about this new hellscape. These trees are wrong, so what else will be wrong? This grass moves in far too fast waves, what else will move too quickly? Even the colors are off. Is that all that will be <i>off</i> in this place post-devouring? He doesn’t want to find out, but he doesn’t want to remember, either.
In the quiet, Sabrael feels the wrongness deep in his guts, in a spot where the dragon normally curls up and nestles within him. He hesitates without the beast’s warmongering spirit; he’s always been less without him, it’s an easy thing to admit now.
But erring on the side of caution as the prey animal he truly is saves him – for a spell.
From a thick cluster of the jagged, ragged trees comes a chirp to cut through the suffocating silence. Another comes just after the first. For the briefest of seconds, Sabrael thinks he will be all right. Foolishly, he thinks nothing else terrible will happen. It is the call of the mockingbird, after all, a call straight from his childhood in the Dale. Like the reptile he sometimes is, he sheds the tight layer of fear he wears and reveals only the uncertainty below. <i>This will be something I can overcome,</i> he thinks, still a fool.
<i>Mocking</i>, he will remember the thought much later. <i>Mocking me.</i>
Sabrael lifts a hoof to step forward, still cognizant of old pains and uneager to receive new ones. He is sure that this is the way out, though. He is sure that he has gone through enough, that it will be a gilded path ahead after the maze of thorns behind him.
When his hoof comes down and the decision is made, the creatures swarm.
They come from all directions all at once, all moving too fast. Things with long arms that drag themselves out of the tall grasses, scraping the yellowed earth with their raptor-like claws. Things that swing down from the bent and broken trees and land on stork-like, skinny legs that eat up the ground easily. Things that rise from the dirt at his feet, even. Things that wrap their bony hands around his legs until one <i>snaps</i>.
He only advances as far as that first step before it is all over. They are too fast and he is too damn weak. He bucks futilely against the grabbing hands of Death, even after one of his front legs crumbles underneath him. The pain is astronomical, but pain is nothing new in and of itself. What is new is the hopelessness that finds him in that moment. Whereas before, Sabrael would call upon his better half, the infallible behemoth that would make him feel stronger than he ought to. Now, he is alone. He’s never felt so alone in all his life.
Death is coming, he is sure. He feels gutted, even as the Things try to gut him, tearing their terribly long nails into his sides, his belly. He feels despair when he remembers the faces of his parents, his friends, Wallace, even as the Things pull down his head and begin <i>chewing</i>. He feels his ears go but that is not enough for them it seems. The Things gnaw deeper, to the skull – he can feel the sick vibrations of their teeth just above his brain. <i>It won’t be long now. And what a funny thing to die here, again.</i> The darkness blots out the edges of his vision.
And then –
Sabrael feels a tug. Like an anchor, he is dragged from this plane of existence. He laughs at this, an impossible sound here and now, but it is more at the attempt than anything. The absolute balls Carnage must have to think he can be saved! The Things shriek madly and give chase as the prone stallion is yanked back. He shrieks, too, as the exposed bone in his leg bumps and grinds on the alien ground. He thought he had felt fire before as it ignited deep within him and expelled through his throat and past his lips; this fire was an entirely different animal as the pain burned him from the outside in. The stallion knows it is worth it if Carnage can pull it off. But he has his doubts.
The Things are still fast and still following his battered body like hounds to a lure. He sees their snapping jaws as they come within inches of his face. He sees his own flesh as gristle between their dagger teeth. He sees their dead eyes, too, his own reflection staring back in their glassy surface. The terror of the hunted is clear in his expression. All those times he’s been in Their position as he took his prey, never in the position he is currently in. It should be sobering, this realization, but all he thinks about is Death.
Their dark god’s grip is not gentle but perhaps it couldn’t be. One Thing reaches desperately for him as he’s lifted up. A single claw caresses instead of cuts his face as he moves out of reach at the last second. He’s out.
The hole is next. His whole body trembles as the darkness closes around him again. <i>No, please. Not again.</i> He anticipates the hands, the claiming, the undoing. His body is nothing to be proud of, certainly not now and maybe never, but it is <i>his</i>. But there is only the dizzying rush of being pulled back. There is only the door as it is slammed shut behind him.
<i>Hungryyyy -</i>
He thinks he can almost hear it, still.
There is a final pinching sensation like a hook being released and then he is slammed back to life, to his body. The first thing Sabrael notices is not the return of his heartbeat or the air swelling back into his lungs, it is the pain. Dulled, but still there. Inside as much as outside. He knows he will linger in it for a long while, maybe even a lifetime or two. He stays there on the beach, unwilling and unable to move, where Carnage has left him without a word. There is no gratitude between them for a place found or a life spared. There is no commonality that can be shared between an unwitting beast and a God who luxuriates in being what he is so unapologetically.
There is only the spark of life that speaks to some kind of hope growing within the broken man.<br><br></p><p id="waltname"></p><p id="waltquote2"></i></p></p><br><br></div></div></center>
He doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want to count each and every new scar he has earned both physically and mentally in such a short amount of time. He should be moving. He should be simultaneously distracting and preparing himself by walking around and learning everything he can about this new hellscape. These trees are wrong, so what else will be wrong? This grass moves in far too fast waves, what else will move too quickly? Even the colors are off. Is that all that will be <i>off</i> in this place post-devouring? He doesn’t want to find out, but he doesn’t want to remember, either.
In the quiet, Sabrael feels the wrongness deep in his guts, in a spot where the dragon normally curls up and nestles within him. He hesitates without the beast’s warmongering spirit; he’s always been less without him, it’s an easy thing to admit now.
But erring on the side of caution as the prey animal he truly is saves him – for a spell.
From a thick cluster of the jagged, ragged trees comes a chirp to cut through the suffocating silence. Another comes just after the first. For the briefest of seconds, Sabrael thinks he will be all right. Foolishly, he thinks nothing else terrible will happen. It is the call of the mockingbird, after all, a call straight from his childhood in the Dale. Like the reptile he sometimes is, he sheds the tight layer of fear he wears and reveals only the uncertainty below. <i>This will be something I can overcome,</i> he thinks, still a fool.
<i>Mocking</i>, he will remember the thought much later. <i>Mocking me.</i>
Sabrael lifts a hoof to step forward, still cognizant of old pains and uneager to receive new ones. He is sure that this is the way out, though. He is sure that he has gone through enough, that it will be a gilded path ahead after the maze of thorns behind him.
When his hoof comes down and the decision is made, the creatures swarm.
They come from all directions all at once, all moving too fast. Things with long arms that drag themselves out of the tall grasses, scraping the yellowed earth with their raptor-like claws. Things that swing down from the bent and broken trees and land on stork-like, skinny legs that eat up the ground easily. Things that rise from the dirt at his feet, even. Things that wrap their bony hands around his legs until one <i>snaps</i>.
He only advances as far as that first step before it is all over. They are too fast and he is too damn weak. He bucks futilely against the grabbing hands of Death, even after one of his front legs crumbles underneath him. The pain is astronomical, but pain is nothing new in and of itself. What is new is the hopelessness that finds him in that moment. Whereas before, Sabrael would call upon his better half, the infallible behemoth that would make him feel stronger than he ought to. Now, he is alone. He’s never felt so alone in all his life.
Death is coming, he is sure. He feels gutted, even as the Things try to gut him, tearing their terribly long nails into his sides, his belly. He feels despair when he remembers the faces of his parents, his friends, Wallace, even as the Things pull down his head and begin <i>chewing</i>. He feels his ears go but that is not enough for them it seems. The Things gnaw deeper, to the skull – he can feel the sick vibrations of their teeth just above his brain. <i>It won’t be long now. And what a funny thing to die here, again.</i> The darkness blots out the edges of his vision.
And then –
Sabrael feels a tug. Like an anchor, he is dragged from this plane of existence. He laughs at this, an impossible sound here and now, but it is more at the attempt than anything. The absolute balls Carnage must have to think he can be saved! The Things shriek madly and give chase as the prone stallion is yanked back. He shrieks, too, as the exposed bone in his leg bumps and grinds on the alien ground. He thought he had felt fire before as it ignited deep within him and expelled through his throat and past his lips; this fire was an entirely different animal as the pain burned him from the outside in. The stallion knows it is worth it if Carnage can pull it off. But he has his doubts.
The Things are still fast and still following his battered body like hounds to a lure. He sees their snapping jaws as they come within inches of his face. He sees his own flesh as gristle between their dagger teeth. He sees their dead eyes, too, his own reflection staring back in their glassy surface. The terror of the hunted is clear in his expression. All those times he’s been in Their position as he took his prey, never in the position he is currently in. It should be sobering, this realization, but all he thinks about is Death.
Their dark god’s grip is not gentle but perhaps it couldn’t be. One Thing reaches desperately for him as he’s lifted up. A single claw caresses instead of cuts his face as he moves out of reach at the last second. He’s out.
The hole is next. His whole body trembles as the darkness closes around him again. <i>No, please. Not again.</i> He anticipates the hands, the claiming, the undoing. His body is nothing to be proud of, certainly not now and maybe never, but it is <i>his</i>. But there is only the dizzying rush of being pulled back. There is only the door as it is slammed shut behind him.
<i>Hungryyyy -</i>
He thinks he can almost hear it, still.
There is a final pinching sensation like a hook being released and then he is slammed back to life, to his body. The first thing Sabrael notices is not the return of his heartbeat or the air swelling back into his lungs, it is the pain. Dulled, but still there. Inside as much as outside. He knows he will linger in it for a long while, maybe even a lifetime or two. He stays there on the beach, unwilling and unable to move, where Carnage has left him without a word. There is no gratitude between them for a place found or a life spared. There is no commonality that can be shared between an unwitting beast and a God who luxuriates in being what he is so unapologetically.
There is only the spark of life that speaks to some kind of hope growing within the broken man.<br><br></p><p id="waltname"></p><p id="waltquote2"></i></p></p><br><br></div></div></center>