Chapter 4: The First Night

His stomach dropped. This was really not the time for Guile to be putting on his creepy act. The darkness had not fully descended, but his ears were suddenly aware of every little noise. The bouncing squish of one of those blobs was not too far away, the wind was creating a symphony of rustling leaves atop the trees, and he swore he could hear something else rustling around nearby. Looking to his guide, he wasn't comforted by the icy violence on his face, the small dangerous smirk that only just touched the corners of his lips.

"Okay, no sympathy, just tell me how to finish this structure," he pleaded.

Guile said nothing. His smirk cutting a deeper, colder line into his face, complimented by the unnatural coloring of his eyes.

Jumping at the sight of one of those blobs suddenly coming into view, he nervously stepped out of its path and watched as, *Shlorp* it's body once more formed a dome creating a seal with the ground, *Plop* it jumped *fTchsh* landing closer to him anyway. His heartbeat kicked up a few notches, he stumbled backwards, pulling first his axe, but then changing his mind, his sword out of his pouches. He raised it in front of him as if to ward it off, while trying to move once more out of its path.

*Shlorp* his stomach jumped to his throat, *Plop* it launched itself straight at him, "AAAAHHHHHHH!" he screamed, thrusting the sword he had no idea how to use out in front of him.

With what he was sure was the only good luck he'd had since waking up in this cursed place, the sword connected with the blob, its tip just barely piercing the surprisingly elastic membrane holding it together. The blob's mass however carried it bowl shaped over the blade, almost as if it were going to just continue its leap to him right through the blade, before it snapped back the other direction sailing away from him.

Standing there gaped jawed, he felt like everything was happening too fast. He wasn't sure why the blob was coming at him this time, he wasn't sure if the sword had so much as fazed it, and he didn't know if he should run, or keep defending himself. That decision was taken from him however when the blob launched itself once more in his direction.

Screaming, for no reason he was capable on considering, he thrust the sword at the slime again with thankfully the same result. Strangely emboldened by the act and deciding that he was going to take control of something, he charged the slime thrusting the sword out in front of him as he ran. That, he decided immediately after, was a mistake.

Having incorrectly gauged the blobs arc, having not considered the possibility that it might have been capable of adjusting its jump, and having absolutely no idea what he was doing after all, he thrust his sword uselessly below it as thing caught him solidly in the chest snapping the rest of its form violently into his face and upper torso with a force he'd not have imagined something so gelatinous could muster.

The force of its impact knocked him back to the ground, and he just managed to hold onto the sword even as his vision swam from the violence of its blow. Trying to focus his gaze, he managed to regain his vision in just enough time to see it leap on top of him once more.

If he'd thought that first blow had hurt, it was a glancing slap to the second impact. He had not managed to so much as raise his hands to fend off its second assault, and it landed squarely in the center of his body. Latching it's perimeter around his sides while the rest of it domed up before bringing its full mass smashing into his core, it used the force of its blow, the same force it used to propel itself across the ground, to do the same, albeit with his much softer body as a platform.

The sound of its jump, which from anywhere else merely sounded like a healthy pop, resonated through him with what felt like a sonic force taking what little breath he had left. He wasn't sure if he could still see for the first few seconds as the constellation of stars that swam before his eyes was far too close to have been real. Not wanting to suffer another blow like that, and not sure if he reasonably could, he pushed through his daze and scrambled to his feet wildly thrusting the sword out around him as he did, using it as much to help him up as to hopefully strike the blob before it could hit him again.

In what was undoubtedly the very last of his luck, he did in fact manage to connect with it. The thing must have just missed him in its last jump as in his frantic struggle to right himself, his sword wildly flaying about, he ended up falling into the blob sword first. The sword first piercing, and then pushing through its membrane, he was more thankful than he could have possibly put into words as he watched it explode in a shower of goop.

Falling to his knees right there amongst the goop his trembling hands still holding the hilt of his sword, which was now sticking into the ground, he felt like weeping with joy. As a reward for his moment of personal reflection, he was knocked face first into the hilt of his sword.

Grabbing both the back of his head where he'd been hit and his forehead that had just recently become close with his sword hilt, he fell to the side and forced himself to unclench his eyes and look up at what he expected to be Guile standing over him with a bag that felt like it was full of sand. What he saw was far worse.

At first, he wasn't sure if he was seeing things, as it almost appeared that the sky itself was peering down at him. Even in his jostled state he knew there was something wrong with that so he tried focusing more on what he was seeing, only to quickly wish that he hadn't.

Suspended several feet above his head, no... not suspended, hovering, flying, swimming through the air, somehow... there were eyes. Not normal sized eyes, which would have been bad enough, but enormous eyes, slightly larger than his head, that must have come from some beast of a size he'd rather not contemplate. There were two eyes, still trailing veins and other entrails that should have never seen the outside of whatever that thing was.

As he watched, one of the eyes came hurtling down at him. Rolling out of the way, the eye crashed into the ground just behind him with a solid *Thunk* that he could feel resonate through the ground. Rolling further and again onto his back, he managed to avoid the second eye crashing down less than an arm's length from his head. These must be the flying dead Guile had been talking about, and he was in no state to defend himself. He was also just barely keeping himself from completely freaking out and this wasn't helping things.

Scrambling to get up and taking off on all fours initially until he managed to somewhat find his feet, he went for the nearby hills. He wasn't sure what he was looking for but he knew he needed to get out of the open. Throwing a glance behind him he was dismayed to learn that the eyes had wasted no time in following him and in fact, were almost close enough to touch. Losing his precarious hold on balance in his shock, he went crashing to the ground further damaging his already wrecked person. Bracing for the impact he was certain would follow, he was surprised when the eyes sailed right over him. Having learned his lesson the hard way, he took no time to count his luck and went stumbling off in another direction.

This continued for what seemed an eternity in the night, him running and diving to the ground to avoid the eyes which thankfully did not seem to have an easy time in the air, all the while looking for somewhere to hide. Every dive was closer to his last and he was slowly losing any hope of making it out of this alive. With his body refusing to respond as quickly as he needed, he was reminded none too gently, mid back, with a force that he was shocked didn't fold him in two, why slowing down was not an option.

How something that seemed to struggle through the air managed to present that kind of an impact on a moving target was beyond him. Also beyond him, it seemed, was a place to hide. He realized in a fleeting moment of deeper insanity that even had he wanted to fight back, he'd left his sword behind still stuck in the earth where the blob had exploded. Struggling back to a moving posture, somewhere between a stumble and a crawl, he scrambled once more forward as the second eye came slamming down behind him.

Gravity, it seemed, was going to be his savior this night, for the next time he fell, tumbling down the side of a hill he didn't realize he was on, he went crashing face first into a small cave that he'd not noticed in his flight. Finding himself thankful for the fickle affections of gravity, he started throwing wood behind him at the opening hoping that the volume of wood, if not it's changing nature, would at least block the entrance before one of the eyes made its way in to finish him off.

*KThunk*

The sound of the eyes impact against wood was far more beautiful to him than any sound he could remember hearing. Terrified to look back, but even more afraid not to, he rolled over to take in the makeshift barricade and was beyond the point where seeing the intersecting beams, barely visible in the darkness where he'd just randomly thrown wood, could upset him. The tears he hadn't consciously conjured could have been joy, or fear, or any number of emotions fighting for dominance in the soup of his remaining consciousness, but for the moment, he was behind a barricade that seemed to be keeping the eyes at bay, and that was enough.

*KThunk*

He jumped as an eye slammed into the beams, causing the wood to shudder, before it wobbly floated away making room for the other to...

*KThunk*

He couldn't stop the terror that shot through his spine at each impact, but the wood looked solid enough and seemed to be holding. Lying there in the dirt he wasn't sure he would ever move again, which made it difficult, initially, for him to identify the screaming and thrashing that was in fact coming from him as something clamped down on his ankle.

Trying to wrench his leg free with energy he did not have to spend, he tried looking down at what held him but was unable to discern anything more than a shape reaching through the barricade. The sounds it made however were low and dangerous, a moan that seemed to seep out from a beast that had long ago lost the ability to articulate for itself. This must be the walking dead.

Wishing he'd not left his sword stuck into the ground and reaching into his bag to find something to fend the thing off with, his hand closed around a handle and he swung, what turned out to be his axe, at the thing grabbing his foot. A single blow was enough to cause the thing to let him go, and as he drug himself backwards his heart almost stopped when he felt something cool and solid against his back.

He was beyond reasonable reactions. He was beyond fighting. He was far too gone to do anymore than squeak out what he thought was supposed to be a scream as he swung his axe behind him hoping against hope that whatever it was would kill him quickly. The sound of something shattering and the explosion of light were the last things he registered before he fell almost featherlike into the endless well of screaming and terror that was his sub consciousness. The world around him moving away, taking the noises, taking the pain, until it was no more than a dot of light blinking out when he could no longer make it out in the distance. His last flit of a thought was thanks for the peace he found at the bottom of the well.