~Natalie Ra'shev~
"Hey! Natalie, help me up here!"
I crouched behind a crate placed on the side of the two story house. My brother Nick was around the corner from me. I left from behind my wooden cover, walking along the yellow-colored outside walls of the home. My leather boots were silent upon the well-kept green grass of the small flower garden, making me a little more stealthy in this midnight infiltration. I looked around before turning the corner.
The populated streets were now lifeless in the face of night, the only life being the faint flicker of candle-lit street lights that swayed in the influence of the nightly gales. Checking both left and right, it seemed the coast was clear. Before proceeding, I checked behind me just in case. The alley behind the home was just as empty as well, save for the old intoxicated man sleeping next to a door. I shrugged, assuming the wash-up was no threat.
Turning the corner, I spotted my brother leaping for a window, attempting to grasp the red rim of the window. His black hood bobbed up and down in a delayed fashion, occasionally revealing his long keidran muzzle. His rounded, disc-like ears were popped out of the hood, as he insisted to keep them uncovered.
"Nick! Stop making a commotion!" I demanded quietly in a harsh whisper.
He turned to me, his violet eyes lighting up in frustration, "Then help me! I can't quite reach it from here."
I rolled my eyes playfully, walking up beside him. I pushed him lightly on the shoulder and crouched down. Holding out my hands, I interlocked them for a platform for Nick to boost off of.
"You can't reach it because you are short, Nick!" I teased.
He didn't look away from the window, but instead kept his entire attention on the wall. Nick looked up and down at both the window and my hands, trying to calculate his jump.
Placing his foot on my hands, he responded subtly, "I am not short. I'm taller than you, at least."
I smiled and boosted my brother up to the window. He grunted as he pushed his paw off my rising hands, gaining the necessary distance to grab the window. After grabbing the red windowsill, he climbed into it awkwardly, his legs dangling a bit while he struggled to get in. I snickered quietly at my brother's attempts.
He leaned out of the window, his face wrinkling in a frown, "Shut up, Natalie! It's hard to climb into a window without help!"
I shrugged with a smug smile, signaling with my hand to have him help me. He leaned farther out of the window, holding out his arm for assistance. I backed up a few steps, trying to get a running start. I shifted gears and ran forwards, my leather boots still virtually silent in the night. As I approached the wall, I placed my foot against it, stepping quickly to make sure gravity doesn't work against me in my small window of time. I extended my arm and grabbed at my brother's arm roughly. I grabbed up a bit too far, and my hand slid down his limb. He stopped me from falling any further by clenching his grasp tighter when my hand reached his.
My body dangled a little with only Nick as support, and I quickly swung myself to the wall. Nick grabbed my arm with his other one as well, and lifted me into the window. The warmth of the house hit me like a heated wall, sheltering me from the cold winds of the night outside. The angle in which I entered the house was off, so I instead stumbled into the house, trying my best to not hit anything while I regained my poor balance. Unfortunately, my attempts were quickly turned ill.
I bumped into an end table that had a well decorated brown vase placed atop it. I winced as the vase spun threateningly. The vase spun into its side and fell unto its wooden surface below it, only making a tiny bumping sound. I released a silent sigh, thinking how a vase almost blew our infiltration.
Of course, I'm not that lucky. The brown vase rolled off the quint end table, shattering into various little pieces. I looked down in disbelief and horror, knowing me and Nick were royally screwed over.
A door behind us swung open slowly, and an older human lady walked out from the room, rubbing her eyes. She looked sleepy, if the bags under her eyes were any indication. Her eyes shifted around the room lazily. We had no time to move, so we just had to stay still and hope she would be too tired to notice.
The human's eyes widened as she spotted us. Her mouth gaped open in shock, stuttering out syllables in fear. "Well shit," I thought, knowing we were doomed.
Nick swiftly pulled out a shortsword that was attached to his hip, the unsheathing sword making a drawn-out metallic sound. He slowly made his way over to the older woman, holding his weapon pointed out from his right hand menacingly. The lady quivered in fear and backed away as slowly as he neared. I placed my hand firmly on Nick's chest, my hand grazing across the black fabrics of his thieving clothes.
Speaking in keidran so the lady wouldn't understand us, I shook my head with disapproval.
"We can't hurt this lady, Nick! We aren't killers!"
"I wasn't going to kill her, I… I just don't want to get caught, Natalie! Not again," he pleaded, looking down with depression.
Suddenly, a burly man stepped out of the room the lady had shown up from, his big bald head red with anger. He had a longsword placed in both hands and he moved his big body in front of the now petrified woman. His brow dripped with sweat, either in anger or from having to carry around a body mass like his.
"Get the hell away from Charlotte, you dirty dogs!" the fat man screamed, raising up his sword. I stepped forward and held out my hands in defense, showing I wanted peace.
"Sir, we will leave, just let us g-"
"No way, bitch! You little mutts ain't going anywhere! Come into my house attempt to hurt my wife? Well… I hope you had a good run, 'cause you've reached the end of the line!"
The woman stood from the wooden floor and grabbed the man's wide shoulder. He turned his head sideways to look this Charlotte character, his angered face relaxing at the worried look of his wife.
"Don't hurt them, darling!" she pleaded, "They probably don't know any better!"
He sighed heavily, his saddened emotion slowly shifting to honored rage.
"I'm sorry… but I have to protect you. Even if that means you hating me."
The man pointed his blade at my neck, only an inch or two away from it. I stepped back in fear of my life, and quickly place my hand unto my hip. I looked down in horror as I saw the trusty identical shortsword of Nick's I had owned was missing from my side. To both my joy and surprise, Nick had jumped in front of my fear-fueled body and had knocked the threatening sword away from us. The fat man stumbled backwards, nearly losing his footing with every awkward step. He just got more ticked, and charged straight towards Nick. My brother rolled away from the charge easily, sliding across the floor and landing the roll beautifully as he extended out his legs once more to stand. But without any force to stop the charging man, he came barrelling toward me with a surprise on his face.
I instinctively held my hands out in front of my face to use my arms as a sort of shield to protect more vital things. I closed my eyes and prepared for imminent pain from the longsword about to strike me. The steel blade ran easily through my left arm, grazing the flesh on the edge of my arm, the black fabric catching and slowing the blade before it ran clean through that as well. His bulky body slammed into me barbarically, launching me and him into the nearby wall.
As my back and skull hit the wall, my body surged in pain. I shrieked in pain, curling into a fetal position on the cold wooden floor below me as a massive headache - or trauma - exploded into my head. I grabbed my injured forearm with my stronger right hand, feeling the fluidness of blood fill my hand quickly from the large gash.
My senses started to fade out, and both audio and visuals become blurry and fuzzy as I struggled to retain any shard of consciousness that rattled within me. The pain was unbearable, I had never felt so much pain like this before. Sure, I've gotten bumps, bruises, and scrapes before, but I've never gotten seriously injured while doing what I did.
I exhaled slowly as my senses started to slip away all together. Maybe… just maybe, it was better to slip away and just…
Sleep.
