Destruction

[jinnear]

This is not a place.
This is not a time.
A memory perhaps but blurred and distorted.
But still, here I am, right now and able to touch things with my hands.
My knees ache from kneeling in the grass for hours.
I swing my pick over my head, over and over again.
Digging.
Trying to find precious seed far away from home... and its raining... off course.

This is not a story.
This is not real.
A memory perhaps but sharp and clear.
I can feel each drop of rain as they splash on my naked arms.
There is a saying, that no story is ever the same story twice. The same
goes for the rain. Every drop wash me in a different way.
The pick is heavy in my palms.
Hours of foraging.
Hours of digging in the dirt...

The herd of caprynis is gone.
No more birds singing in the trees.
Even the ragus, who have been eyeing me hungrily for the last hour, has turned its tail and gone.
I wonder how long the world around me has been silent?
The fall of rain increase in strength as I get to my feet.
I know these signs. They are not good ones.
I turn to look around me in the forest, to find landmarks, to navigate by the roots.
The city needs warning...
I must go.

The ground trembles and explodes behind me. Dirt and seeds and oil spray past my head. A mighty
roar sounds between the trees. It hurts my ears and my heart starts pounding like drum in my chest.
Already running I glanze hastily over my shoulder. A horde of kitins are now pouring out of the
ground, hissing and roaring, making their way towards the nearest city... right after me...
I dont think I have ever run this fast. My legs, tired from foraging, feel like implosions of pain. The
clattering of kitin feet grows louder. One of them is speeding up beside me and starts taunting me by
stabbing its huge kinchers towards me in the air. I dodge a root, I skip a tree, I brush a bush... my sweat
mingles with the rain and it runs down into my eyes. It stings.
I am tired.

So tired...

I get a feeling they are just playing with me, running behind me, taking turns in breathing down my neck.
The laughter of hordes of kitins. The son of a Matis lord, chased like a gingo.
Something stabs me in the back, not too hard but enough to make me stumble and more kitins move up
beside me. I regain balance and throw my pick at them. It hits one of them between its front legs. The beast
sidesteps, crashes into another kitin and they both whirl into a tree.
Rain.
So hard it hurts.
They roar all around me now.
It is deafening... all consuming... I will never hear another sound again.
Will I ever see my mother again?
My two younger brothers?
How to look my father in the eyes?
Suddenly one of them is standing right in front of me. I realise this much too late and we collide.
I carry no weapons, I left them at home... my armor is weak... no other homins near.
I throw myself to the side to avoid the first thrust. The kitin starts moving in circles around me, stabbing
and swinging its sharp claws down upon me.
I go from standing to kneeling to crawling and rolling... here and there, over and back again... slower
and slower...
I have no air left in my lungs.
No more strength.
So I throw myself, violently towards the monster, in an act of hope abandon. The kitin did not expect this
and I find myself under the belly of the beast, both its kinchers stuck in the ground where I had just been.
With no other option in sight I try to find a good grip in its shell, prying my fingers in between its plates.
And I hang there.
And it gets loose from the earth and starts a dance of anger. It almost shakes me off but I cling to it
in desperation... this kitin is my life.
The world is up side down.
We run...
...or march would be more appropriate.
Fast.

I dont know where I am

Sometimes during this ride I dont even know who I am.

A sudden stop. Preparation for battle. I let go of it... fall down in mud. A trail? It steps away from me.
Movements in the corner of my eye. My kitin stumbles dead to the ground. I look up and see one of the
city guards coming. He lays a hand on my shoulder and says something. I cant make out what though...
I try to warn him... the kitins are coming... an army of them... flee!
Havoc has begun behind him.
He tries to calm me down.
His friends are butchered by giant insects.
There is blood all over.
In the mud and the grass...
He turns to see what is causing the noise.
His feet are swept away from under him.
I came too late...
Much too late.
As I try to get up I find myself stuck in one position. I cannot move. Looking down there is a big red
claw sticking out through my stomach... it goes all the way from my back... I am pierced and warm.
So warm.
And the world goes black.
Warm.

I can hear again... in the silence, a buzzing and a chittering, as if something very very small was
trying to make its way over a wooden floor. I move in the darkness. Try to get my bearings.
A bed...
I let the lights illuminate the room. My room. I am home. Awake and soaked in sweat.
My eyes go a search for the source of the sound.
There!
A tiny insect crawling over the floor. I jump out of bed and crawl down on the floor.
Hand raised...
...and crush.
Die kitin scum.
My armor and my long axe hangs on the wall. I take them down, put the armor on... polish the axe.
Out through the door, out of the house. One of my brothers is standing there, fending off kitins...
after kitins... after kitins... I join him. I let my axe swing beside his dagger and sword. Turmoil.
I have begun walking a path of destruction.
I shall always be prepared.
Dream or no dream.


/Mabus of Phaedreas Tears

[jinnear]

a bit more straightforward this time... hope you like it

[wirsinds]

yup, I like it - the style it's written in is great (even so I liked the spoooooky depths way more, true literature, I say...)! Keep on!