Random Adventure 1

Random Adventure #1
Part 1

It started off as it always does, and it made me upset as it always
does. When it begins, I feel normal at first, then there's a strange
sensation of, well its hard to describe, I guess it can only be called
excitement, like there's an electric party inside me, which starts off
in the core of my chest and disperses throughout my body, until it
takes over. It's not a particularly bad feeling though, it's just, what
upsets me is that I've only got seconds warning before I disappear
forever.

I suppose you might almost say its fun - or at least unique in a good
way - but I can never get over the feeling of being adrift, lost. And
that never does good things for a person's psychology.

Out of nowhere, I find myself again, from a drunken blur in my face
that steadily clears, leaving me alert. I'm on my back, I feel grass on
my skin and sight wide open sky coming into focus. It is a cold and
murky day with a backdrop of hollow echoing wind. By that time I was
getting used to it all, the disappearing; my lagged body finds its way
up to its feet and sets about getting its bearings. With a brief look
about the environment I know immediately I'll be most unwelcome this
time.

A short run across the scruffy field is a brilliant laser-edged knife
wielded at the hand of what I can only assume is an escaped psychopath.
The thing is half as long as her arm and she grasps it like a sword
with the tip lunging up at the air with each step she takes.
Immediately I dive down for cover, panic seizing at my body, glaring at
her through the blades of grass like prey, hoping her gaze won't catch
mine.

The woman looks intensely agitated, as if she's after someone, it's
rare but it does happen sometimes that people know about me, and they
always seem to be the nutcases who think I'm some demonic force they
have to purge from the earth. Quickly it became apparent that she knew
I was there.

"Hello", I suppress the panic and climb to a stand, then her glare does
catch mine, hitting me into a pitiful vulnerable isolated helplessness.
"Are you gonna kill me?" I whimper to the raggedy hunter. It brings me
no relief when she shakes her head softly and smiles, in a creepy
psycho murderer kind of way. I realise I'd already started to back away
in fear.
"It's for protection!" she gruffly asserts.
"Protection from?" Uh-oh, my soul droops in despair, with each second
the situation grows more tense and I feel time running out. "Tell me,
please!"
The woman slides into a certain depression just like I did, and quietly
says "I don't know, I never know what to expect."
Her weapon glints knowingly at me, and it is then that I see the
darkened red encrusted on the handle. There's something worse than her
in this field, and I am defenceless.

Part 2:
So we're both prey here? My gaze darts restlessly about the fields,
across the horizon, everywhere, we're near a wall, a farm-ish kind of
loose stone wall, only as high as a sheep. I turn to her, still tense
to speak to her, "Do you have any idea what's going on here?" she
barely manages for a second to break from her stealthy watching to
throw me a suppressed "NO!"

I'm as good as alone, still. With a tense dread creeping subtly over
the atmosphere, I make for the wall; it's the only protection I can
see, bar a few old buildings in the tiny distance. I keep thinking
about that knife, the way the grubby stains had settled in the creases
of the handle, as if they were so worn in that no amount of cleaning
could renew it.

The brushing of feet against grass softens as I stop by the wall,
resting, though I'm not physically tired yet. That knife, its got a
wear on it like from a lifetime of messy stabbing, that woman looks
like she's been fighting for a lifetime, who the hell is she? She has
turned; she's staring at me, no, at the wall, probing... I can't help
but slip aside from her animalistic glare, and I call "Why are you
here", instantly she locks onto me, the reaction of hate building in
her is blatant.
"I can't control it." rasps the thing.
"Control what?" I reply immediately and it's because I already know
what she is. I can feel it. "You keep disappearing." My face seems to
open out and my breath turns hollow as I speak. "You vanish at random
and wake up somewhere you don't know; you're like me, aren't
you."
Her arms fall limp, her grip tightens on the knife, she faces me
directly with broad sharp eyes and gasps, slowly. She's becoming even
more anxious. "Say something!" I despair.

Oh God, absolutely? What a non-event, I have actually met another
person like me, I know it, but I can only feel so null inside about it.
"What's your name?" I don't really expect a response but I have to ask.
She says nothing, no surprise, and she looks slightly angered - she now
erupts at me out of nowhere with decisive striking swing and before I
can cringe in terror her knife is lunged at my head - I? I'm still
alive? and the ground behind me is hit by a grass muffled thud, a deep
draw of air lets me catch my wits again and start to actually
comprehend what the warrior in front of me has done. She stares
straight past me, with a ghostly demeanour rising and only says "Look
behind you".

I'm only just realising that I've been almost paralysed by the shock of
that attack; I can hardly force myself to move. Over the grey stone
wall, as the grass leans into view, is a body. I don't know what kind
of person this is, but it's no farmer. Farmers don't dress in such
sinister black robes; they veil all his skin, hooded right over his
face. I can hardly make out his form through the cloth, but he is dead,
so much force went at his head that only an inch of the silver blade is
showing and the impact is so clean that barely a spatter escaped. - The
killer appears over my shoulder, callously yanking back her knife. "Be
careful, they're never so easy to kill", she examines the dead body
intently, surely it's dead, surely?
"What is it, tell me what it is." The pieces are coming together and
this dark man is one of them. I dread where this is leading.
"They've always been after me." Her voice is saturated with torment,
"That means they're after you as well."

The events of my life that began six years ago are coming to a head; I
just hope I survive it.

Part 3:
"It's getting harder to remember? I was walking down the street, just
to the corner shop for some sweets - I did that a lot - but I was in a
rush that time because it was getting stormy. Some way down the road I
tripped, I don't remember on what but I gashed my head badly on a lamp
post as I fell." For some reason I just started talking about my past,
reliving how it began.
I'm starting to receive a lot more of the stranger's attention, "It
wasn't a lamp post." She declares, and actually she's right.
"A post for phone cables, but is was different - sinister."
"That's only a disguise. It had strange markings, glyphs in silver
metal, right at the base yes"
"X486, that was the marking I think."
"The first one I found was X009. They're everywhere. Then I was hit" I
instantly I implode after hearing that, I can remember the strike like
being hit again, it was a huge godly strength power that hit me,
us.

The floodgates are opening just like they did on that day, to think
back at it could almost be called funny; it was horrible. My
counterpart leaves the wall eagerly, rising with a sense of alarm and
pacing away and she calls "I must go, you should go too. They never
travel alone". I start up after her immediately, "What do we do, what
are they!" I yelp, she's accelerating, sprinting already - I hear a
crash behind - what! It's still alive, sprung up from the wall and
chasing, I peer back I awe bursting into a run as the dead man of dark
flailing robes comes for us.

I'm falling back, can't keep up with her she's too well practiced at
this. I can hear its breath and it wants us, I push myself harder with
that horrid deathly urge you get when a rabid dog comes after you and
you know it won't stop. The warrior breaks and with a swift twist
around hurls her faithful knife back at him, he is downed. It takes a
moment for me to feel safe stopping. She is already advancing toward
him but now, but more dark shrouds are appearing in the distance, the
predators are closing in.

I feel rough from running already, she wastes no time retrieving her
weapon from the thing; its punctures are beginning to leak, I can't
quite see what colour is against the black robes.
"Who are they." I need to know and urgently, my heart is surging, my
arms and legs grow heavy and charged with every second passing.
"The posts, they built them." She smears the blood off her knife
against her jeans. "It's how they travel, I've seen them, for years,
lurking out where it's dark."

Oh no, in the distance they are drawing closer, at least a dozen of the
shadowy forms, they don't run, they know they know don't need to, we're
surrounded.
"Did you feel a shock, like lightning?" She asks, and she knows the
answer.
"Yes, back at the beginning, at that post in the street."
"It was lightning, or any strong electric shock, it's as if it
overloads their transport system, whatever controls the posts. That's
how it starts, that's when you start disappearing."

The ring of creatures has reached within calling distance, "Is there
any chance we'll make it, can we escape." Just as the words leave my
mouth, back again in the edge of the sky as far as those tiny buildings
I begin to see. "Look." I try to point but my arms just won't lift, I
can feel death. A second wave of shadow in the horizon, advancing. That
instant all sense of hope was dead. There could be dozens, over a
hundred in total. Even the woman now looks to have given up, she moves
back fatefully toward the dead thing, all his kind seems to be after
us, and as if reaching inside night, she folds back its hood... It's a
man, intensely pale, his features grim and so artificial, plastic. What
is it wearing, - some kind of boiler suit, royal blue - upsettingly
familiar to me, very.

"Ones like us" Her voice fails further "if anyone finds out about them
they come to kill us."
"They have a plan, maybe they're watching humans, maybe it's an
invasion, I don't know."
I turn slowly, seeing the nightmare close in on every degree. If
they're just watching, why go to such lengths to keep it secret?