AN: Yet another creative writing assignment. The prompt was to write an important scene in the character's life in "real time," as they're experiencing it, with no backstory. This one is using my techno-mage from a modern d20 campaign as he attempts to escape from prison. After this he gets his consciousness projected into a computer for safe keeping.
The Flight of the Clanless
Running. Burning, throat burning. Alone.
A branch comes out of nowhere, snatches my arm, pulls my wrist back because I don't notice and I try to keep running and the crossbow hits the ground and I can't go back for it. Run. Gotta run, stay in the dark.
The dogs cry. The men call:
"Where ya goin', flinger!"
"Come on back now!"
"You're just making this harder!"
I feel mud under my shoe and fall backwards. My back hits the ground. The impact takes the warmth from me and I slide, falling, slipping in the mud down the hill. I reach the bottom and get up. Hands muddy, fingernails muddy, everything muddy. Gotta run. Gotta breathe. The cold burns.
I should cast. I can feel the energy boiling. It wants their heads. I should cast but I can't. I can't cast or they'll know where I am. They'll find me, because it's light and I have to be dark.
They've already found me. They have flashlights at my back and my shadow sprints against the trees, dark. The dogs bark and the men bark just the same and they just keep getting closer and closer and the cold, the fucking cold, god…
I should cast.
I can't. I can't take on all of them. So many…
I'll trip; I know it in my knees. Sooner or later I'll grow too weak and I'll trip. The hill just keeps going down. I jump over a rotted log. My leg rips open, takes small flecks of bark with it. Blood burns, but not as much as the cold. At least I'm bleeding. At least I'm alive.
Snapping jaws. I swing, miss. It bites. Fucking dog!
"GET OFF!"
The burn tears down my arm, into my elbow, wrist, hand, fingertips, and then to the dog, with an explosion of purple light and a crack and a yelp. It likes the fur, the floppy tongue. It burns the fur, it burns the skin, the teeth, it takes the nerves, it shakes them a little, then returns. The dog falls back and my legs are pounding and the men won't stop shouting.
"Look at the sparkler go!"
I run. Down, down, cold and sweating, barely breathing, nothing but dark ahead. The energy comes back. I casted. I shouldn't have, but I did. I killed the dog, I could kill them. Just one or two, that's all I'd need.
"Fairy bitch!"
Just one.
I run. Little further. Need a minute, need to charge. Run.
It comes up, in both arms this time. It gathers, it's angry, it's out for their bodies, it's hungry. It demands to be released, and I can relate.
We, we two, we turn. It's in the arms, it's that tingle. I'll cast. We'll leave. We'll kill them all.
The flashlights hurt. I squint, try to stop my legs from moving so that I can get a good shot but they go along without me, catching more mud, slipping back, me, falling forward, down, my chin on the ground, my teeth knocking together, me snorting up mud, a cold burn. Not mud, a ledge. A ledge! LEDGE!
It comes up! It's in the arms and my legs are too heavy and I fall! FALL! It's in my palms and I can see its light and I'm falling! FALLING, FALLING, FUCK!
Where the fuck did that ledge come from! It was so DARK!
It's in the fingers and I hit the water. It's deep. I sink. I can't feel. It's cold, cold everywhere. The water is stabbing me and I can't move and I don't want to. The purple light is out. It takes the whole deep, it takes my body. The water lights up. I light up. I can't move but I do, involuntarily, jolting, full of pain and robbed of breath, I take the water into my lungs and I burn. A cold burn.
Shouldn't have casted. Fuck.