RE: Return to home...
> Revealed under it's cover were 4 bodies, still breathing. > Beaten, blind folded, wrapped in chains, barely alive. They were > also unconscious, what made it easier for them to remove the heavy load. > The bodies were pulled one by one, left lying on the road > for the next traveller to claim. They knew somebody would show up > soon and take the kidnapped Guards, and there was no reason to > worry...but if they still died, well, bad luck. Rue Denali had given several kittens away from a litter he'd rescued from an odd domestic dispute in Brookshire months ago. Whoever had wanted a kitten, took a kitten. Two became the guardhouse mascots. Two went to Lani. Two went to Brin. And in the dark cold of this island night, the one Brin called Ruester climbed up to the bed she lay sleeping in, meowed plaintively and then fell over the side, collapsing in a heap. The kitten would be found sprawled on the floor next to the bed come morning, apparently dead. ~*~ "Risk my soul, test my life For my bread Spend my time lost in space Am I dead? Let the river flow Through my callused hands And take me from my own The eyes of the damned" It may have been the main northern road to MystHaven where he lay, and it may have been a bone chilling night upon the frozen, snowy ground of his beloved Isle of Myst, but it felt like a bed of nails in the hottest of hells for Rue as he first stirred to consciousness. And he had not even the capability to cry out as the nails pierced his skin and mind. Lips, nostrils, and eyelashes nearly frozen shut, they were all that moved on his chain-bound frame, except for the shallow rise and fall of his ribs easily seen through the torn, bloodstained t-shirt the Wyvern Gang had the grace to leave on all the guards, along with their cotton underbreeches. There was nothing but blackness behind the same grimy blindfold that had covered his eyes for more days and nights then he could fathom. Was it just a few days ago, the others had expressed disbelief that he was even alive as he stirred in his cell? And at the time, he had considered that perhaps he wasn't. He had the distinct memory of his mother's aura but little else. "It makes my stomach turn And it tears my flesh from the bone How we turn a dream to stone And we all die young Tell me I know I lived so afraid And still we cry alone With words left unsaid" Yet he knew he felt the pain and knew that if this wasn't life, he was surely in some level of hell being tortured for his worst sins, excruciatingly one at a time. He knew the extreme pain of his infected bolt wounds and felt the steel toxicity seeping into his blood, and he knew the pain of the chains slamming against his bones, breaking his ribs and fracturing his jaw. He knew the snow under him meant he was no longer in the cave cell. He knew he'd freeze here soon in the open. He tried to listen for the other three, but he could not hear anything except the wind in his frostbitten ears. Nothing else and no one else came to his numb self, save a blinding and biting pain to his stomach that stole the breath from his lungs as he lost consciousness once more. the_____________end A brief background on Rue Denali: http://www.dragonmyst.f2s.com/char/rue.html "It sounds cold, but it's not cold," he explains. "I mean, what the truth in life is, you need failures, you need tough times to get any kind of value on what's important to you and what's not. There's no way around it." (BP '92) -- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives & Other DMI Lists: http://www.dragonmyst.f2s.com/lists.php3
