Don't You Know I Need You?
Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:58 pm
9 Glade 121
She ran. Or, she ran as well as her legs could carry her.
It was an odd, shuffled-hobbling run that carried her only several steps before she stumbled. Had to catch herself, her palms scraping against the ground before she was upright again and limping forward. The wild swing of her arms did minimal to force her form into some sort of correction to speed her up. But it made reaching for posts easier. People on the street were few, and those that were there seemed drunk or high or both and incoherent and unconcerned with her plight. Just another one of the miserable wretches that lived below the great sprawling city of Kalsazi.
She should warn them. Yes, she should warn them of what Matthias had told her. Said it like a promise, not a threat. She shuddered at the thought; Matthias had always kept his promises as a child. It was likely nothing had changed since he had grown.
The words bubbled into her throat, strangled by her attempts to suck in air as she ran. And so she went, a babbling fool hobbling slightly faster than the average drunken imbecile to get away from a terror unseen. Wide wild eyes turned upward, searching for one of the many entrances that linked the Midden to the city proper. Bony shoulders collided with someone else’s, sharp rebukes issued after her. Around her.
A hand jerked her back to face them, a scream fully breaching her lips. Fingers pressed into her skin deep, adding to the collection of bruises she was already sporting. She stumbled in their hold as her mind barely comprehended what was being said to her. Words, traded between bodies as she was pulled closer. Her head turned and her eye prodded before she hissed, thrashed with another spike of fear.
He was coming, gaining on her.
The only she spent with them, the more time he had to catch up to her. To them. She kicked out at the stranger’s leg. But this was not a surprised Matthias, fighting to hold onto his sanity and control. They dodged it easily enough, chuckling at “the audacity”. Big words for a gutter rat. He snarled. Had she said that aloud? Whatever the case, she was on the ground again and a fresh ache had started in her jaw. Rocks ground in her cheeks as the man placed a boot on her head, held her there on the ground for a moment.
The pounding of her head, the beat of her heart in her ears overpowered anything they could have been saying. Distantly, she realized they were laughing. Oh, because they didn’t know. They didn’t understand who was coming, what was coming. Full circle, her thoughts had come. She should warn them. She tried. A botched, mutated sound that came out. The bleating of a wounded sheep as she attempted to convey what was the source of her panic, her terror. And what did they do? They laughed.
They laughed until they couldn’t.
Just beyond her field of vision was a flash of light in the impromptu barrel bonfire they had going. The wink of the flames off the blade of an axe as it crested through the air and landed with a sickeningly wet thud into the skull of the person closest to the flames. As the head of the axe was pulled from the body, the corpse slumped forward into the flames. Burning cloth and cooking flesh filled her nose as the smoke billowed up and the rest of the cohort turned on the latest intruder. She was forgotten on the ground, the boot lifted from her head.
A moment she could use this moment to escape. Could being the operative word, because as much as she wanted to, she found herself stuck watching as Matthias jammed the axe into one woman’s side. Her shrieks of pain and terror filled the legionnaire’s ears, a lively accompaniment to the woodwind orchestra of her breathing and the percussion of her heartbeat. An erratic thudding in her ears matched in pace by the quick intakes of breath as if she were struggling to breathe more than usual.
She turned her head as the axe was ripped out, and plunged into another person’s chest. Her belly dragged against the ground as she crawled away, praying to whatever god could hear her then to keep him from seeing. But she would have no such luck. Not with the man that had placed his boot on her face grabbing at her ankle. Try as she might, lips mashed together to muffle the scream that threatened to break free, she could not remain quiet enough. Or maybe it was just him. His grip on her ruined ankle became tighter with each passing second, her nerves on fire and her body retaliating with little spasms. She should kick him off. She could do that. A single attempt only lead to more pain bouncing around her body as his fingers seemed to close down around her ankle tighter with the force of the kick.
Whatever groveling he was doing, she couldn’t hear. Not over the sound of her own breathing, or the crunch and turn of the rocks as Matthais drew near. His shadow stretched over them wide. She tried harder to get away from the man, missing her ankle entirely to kick at his wrist. He withdrew, spouting curses at her just as the axe swung down and split his face clean in two.
He’d devolved. Or maybe evolved; maybe this was what they had wanted all along. She didn’t care for it. She crawled forward again, pushed herself on her knees. The heels of her paws were scraped raw, the pain forgotten as she tried to put more distance between herself and the man she’d once knew. No, he was no man now. Just a vessel, slowly being emptied by the wraith. There was no longer any fight left in him.
Fingers wrapped against her ankle and she screamed, unbidden. What was the point of holding it in? She might think that someone would hear her, but what would they do? This was not their problem, and they would only be saving themselves by leaving her here to die. Like Feia had, when she’d tossed her over that cliff. In a way, that woman was to blame for all of what was happening. If Feia had just run, hadn’t thought to push her in the way of the wraiths, then maybe something else would have killed her. The writhing masses of the hungered could have found her, torn her apart like all the others. That would have been a much quicker death.
She felt her body lift more from the ground as he pulled her back, leg raised. “Need you.” It wasn’t his voice, but it was. She shuddered, stilling as he dragged her back. Were they headed toward the house again? Part of her hoped so and part of her did not. She would have preferred he killed her out there on the street. So that she wouldn’t have to look at Isabel in her final moments.
She was pulled from her thoughts as he dropped her leg once more. The legionnaire craned her neck, turned her head to look up at him. His attention was one something else. She remained still, waiting. Watching. Then, she heard what he must have: a quiet gasping, sputtering. Soft groans as the person tried to catch their breath. But there was panic as it quickened and they were coughing again. Wet coughs; blood. The woman sucked in her own breath, ear to the ground as she continued to wait.
The woman turned her head as rock and dirt sifted around beneath the weight of Matthias’ footsteps. He crouched down before where the dying sounds were coming from. The breathing quickened, accented by weak sobs. The woman he’d driven the axe into the side of. That wouldn’t have been enough to finish her off, maybe, but that was often how it was, wasn’t it? What didn’t kill you made you stronger, but only if you survived, and that woman certainly didn’t have any time left to survive. So while the stranger coughed and gasped and used her last breaths to wail pitifully, the legionnaire sought to make use of hers.
It would not be in vain, that woman dying. Just like her having been thrown to the wolves wouldn’t have been. Feia had made it out, probably. Likely; she’d seemed of sturdier stock than most. The woman pushed herself forward once more, but forced herself to stand. Lifted her leg to hobble away from the scene. At first slow to keep quiet, but then her hops quickened and she ducked beyond a corner. She couldn’t make out his footsteps as she picked up speed; she didn’t stop to hear them.
She just had to get out, keep running. Out of the Middens like the wraiths had wanted from the beginning.
