WARNING: Rather dark content. Background character death. Brief mentions of gore. Murder.

101 Day Writing Challenge

Day One:

Write about your favourite character(s).

Zane:

Running Nowhere

He awoke to an empty house.

Nausea hit him unexpectantly, causing his vision to blur and for the ground to sway dangerously closer to his pounding head.

Slowly, the nausea passed, allowing him to take in his surroundings. His eyes (what colour were his eyes?) strayed to the empty bed in front of him and an unexpected, unexplainable panic rose in his chest.

His head snapped to and fro, breathing starting to become ragged, searching for... searching for...

What was he searching for?

A gust of frigid wind caused him to shiver, then jump as it blew open the door, which banged loudly against the wall. It caused his heart (...heart?) to start pounding against his chest, his fingers to start trembling, his breath to quicken.

The walls were closing in on him. Smaller, smaller, smaller, until he could touch either side if he spread his arms. The shadows stretched along the floor, danced in the corners, reaching for him with large, clawed, skeletal hands.

His brain told him to run, but his legs carried the order out clumsily. He tripped over his own two feet, landing painfully on his arm, then immediately scrambled back up. His feet pounded loudly against the wooden stairs, which groaned and squeaked in protest. He burst out the door, getting a face full of frost and snow that numbed his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

He looked around, breaths coming out in puffs of white, but he could see nothing but snow and the faint outlines of trees.

Unthinking, his brain clouded in a haze of fear and confusion, he began to run.

Running nowhere.

He slept on the streets.

If he were lucky, he'd find something edible in the bins, or a passerby would take pity on him (he hated pity, but he needed it) and give him money or food. A woman had even given him an old patchwork blanket she'd been in the process of throwing out.

It was with this very same patchwork blanket that he sat in an alley, shivering and trembling, the fabric only doing so much to keep him warm in the freezing snow.

Often times, he found himself loving the snow, the ice, the beauty and the fun that could be done with such weather. But there are times when he despised it, when he wishes for someplace warmer, someplace where he'll have a better chance of surviving the night.

Whenever he could, he worked. While he was not the best at robotics, he found that he was descent with mechanics. He'd help out people around the town, fix their waggons, walk their dogs, help rebuild and do errands. He'd sometimes take messages from one side of town to the other, for a small fee.

He soon became known as the Link Boy. Or, to some of the less pleasant people of the town, the Link Rat.

He still couldn't remember his name. It was not Link. Nor was it Rat.

He knew what his name was. He knew that he knew. He just couldn't remember it.

This is what scared him most.

"Link Rat!" Edwards called, his fat face red from the wind, "Get over here!"

Immediately, he tumbled from his precious patchwork blanket, shaking snow from his damp, dirty rags that used to be clothes. It was still cold, freezingly so, and while he had found that he did not mind the cold all that much, even he had his limit.

With his blanket wrapped around his shoulder, careful to make sure it didn't drag on the slushy ground, he stumbled on numb legs towards the large man standing at the entrance of the alley.

Edwards looked him over with a critical eye, obviously unimpressed with what he saw, although there was a hint of sympathy, albeit barely, in his eyes. He shook his head, turning away. "I need you to deliver a message to Gustave for me. I'll give you five... ten coins. And I'll throw in a pair of old mittens."

Eagerly, he nodded. Edwards grunted.

"Tell him that Ms Malynda wants that necklace to have sapphires instead of rubies and that it's gotta be done by the end of the week. You got that?"

He nodded, already tieing the blanket around him so he could carry it better and still help keep him warm. Edwards nodded too.

"Good." he dug a fat hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out five little coins, handing them to the boy, "You'll get the rest once you're done."

"Th-Thank you." he stuttered, slipping the coins into a small pouch he kept tied around his waist with numb fingers.

"I'll be at Omead's Inn." said Edwards, already walking away, "Meet me there for the rest of your payment."

Despite the cold that slashed at his exposed face and legs, he began to run through the snow, skidding on the ice, the frost seeping into his already damp clothes and blanket.

The coins jingled in his little pouch as he ran through the town of Birchbite.

When he finally found Edwards later that night, his dead body hung from the ceiling by a hook through his throat.

There were more murders as time went on.

They were random, directed towards random people, and got even more brutal with each attack. The butcher's daughter, whom he had been smitten with for the past few weeks (although as was half the other boys in Birchbite), was found in a dumpster without a head. The bakers, a lovely lesbian couple who were expecting, had woken up all of Birchbite with their screams when they opened the pantry to find the dead body of Nicolas Peg, who had worked at the mill with his wife and brother, with his eyes gouged out of his skull.

All of Birchbite was as tense as a bowstring. At nightfall, doors were locked up tight, windows were shuttered, lights were put out, and the adults slept with weapons under their pillows and one eye wide open. As the sun set, you could see people dashing to their homes, parents urgently ushering their children inside.

But he had little choice.

The blacksmith, Gustave, was a kind man, in his middle fifties. His wife had died years ago and his son and daughter had long since moved away to have children of their own, although that did not mean they didn't keep in contact.

Gustave often gave him small jobs to do for a reasonable amount of pay, as well as food and water. He even gave him some old clothes, although they were a little large and hung off his body. But they were better than his rags.

"Here you are, son," the old blacksmith said, handing the Link Boy the necklace Ms Malynda had ordered, neatly wrapped in brown cloth, "Stay safe out there, a'right?"

He nodded, giving Gustave a grateful smile, and jogged out into the snow. Ms Malynda lived all the way on the other side of town, and the alley he often slept in was right in the middle. It was because of this that she would sometimes send someone to him so he could go to Gustave, usually with requests for jewellery or to deliver something back.

Either way, he was far from minding, for it put a little bit of gold in his pockets.

As he walked, the sun slowly began to set, and his jogging slowly went down to a walk. Some of the children waved as he passed, but were quick to follow their parents inside. Eventually, far sooner than even he had expected, the streets were empty and silent.

He reached his alley as the sun set fully on the horizon, coming to a stop at the entrance. He frowned, looking around the empty street, wondering if he should just deliver the necklace in the morning.

But what if they cut his pay? What if they don't pay him at all? Besides, it's not like he'd be any safer, any warmer in his alley than he is walking to Ms Malynda's house.

He sighed and continued walking.

With every step he took, it slowly got darker, slowly got colder. It was colder than most nights, and soon he was shivering, hugging himself in a fruitless attempt to stay warm. The snow squished and squelched beneath his worn, hole-filled boots, soaking his already damp socks. The wind howled, turning his face bright red, a loose window shutter banging and slamming against the wall.

There was no stars or moon that could be seen, for they were hidden behind clouds. It was dark. It was cold. He was scared.

Someone was giggling.

He stopped, his breath freezing in his throat. There was a long, tense silence, and just as he was about to convince himself he was imagining things, there it was again. A high-pitched giggling that made his blood run colder than ice.

He spun around, heart pounding, his eyes searching the shadows for the one that had been giggling. The street was quiet. The streetlight opposite him flickered.

A long moment passed and nothing happened. Letting out a small sigh of relief, he turned- and came face to chest with a man.

A scream passed his lips but was almost immediately cut off by a large, rough hand, another spinning him around so his back was pressed against the man's chest, an arm holding him in place.

He struggled, thrashing and kicking and screaming into the hand. The man giggled, his breath hot on his ear, whispering under his breath in words his brain was too terrified to register.

The man dragged him into the nearest alley, one that he himself had slept in once or twice, and threw him into a pile of snow. He twisted around, trembling, but then the man was on top of him, a knife just inches from his eye. He tried to scream for help, but his throat wasn't working.

"What should I take this time?" the man giggled to himself, "An ear? His lips? His wittle tail?" He burst into a fit of giggles, as though he had said something incredibly funny.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no." the man tutted. It was hard to see his face in the darkness of the alley, but it appeared slightly lumpy, with a large nose and stubble around his mouth. His shoulders were wide and broad, and he was a lot shorter than what the Link Boy had imagined. The tip of the knife pressed against his left nostril.

"My, my, what a pretty little nose you have." Another giggle, "It will look perfect with the rest of my collection."

The man raised his knife and, finally, a scream tore from his throat. The blade came down swiftly, only to come to a stop inches from his eye, his arms trembling from the effort of stopping it from coming any closer.

"Oh, aren't you a strong one?" the man whispered, putting more weight down, the knife slowly inching closer to his eye, "You surprise me, Link Rat, I'll give you that."

The tip of the knife was now centimetres from his pupil. It was so close that it lightly brushed against his eyeball. He closed his eyes.

Then rammed his knee into the man's back.

A surprised gasp echoed through the alley. He kneed him again, and again, but then the man gave a grunt of annoyance and let go of the knife with one hand, using it to twist slightly and pin his legs to the snow. He struggled, twisting and thrashing, but it was of no use.

"Poor, poor little Link Rat." whispered the man, "Poor, lost, stupid little Link Rat."

With terrifying ease, he yanked the knife from the boy's hands, holding it over his head, showing off his rotten teeth in a face-splitting grin. Instinctively, he covered his face with one arm, his other feeling blindly along the wet ground in a desperate search for a weapon.

His hand closed around something small and rough. He peeked out through his arm. The man brought down his knife.

The rock connected with his face. Then again and again and again, in a spray of blood and teeth, staining the white snow in a bath of crimson.

The man lay still. The rock fell from limp fingers. The jewelled necklace gleamed in the snow as the moon briefly showed itself, having fallen from his pocket at some point. He was covered in blood.

He began to run.

Running nowhere.

Word Count (No AN's): 2104

...You know, this was just supposed to be a Zane character study... what the hell happened to my story?