They had made it to the wall before The Reasonable reveled his plan. Dalton stared at him, mouth agape.
"So, this is a memory?"
"Yes."
"And I'm not real?"
"In all the ways that matter."
"So, your plan is toooo...?"
The Reasonable looked at him, and shook his head.
"So, it stands to reason that nothing in here can hurt me, now that I know it's just a memory."
It's at that point that Dalton took an arrow to the throat, and slumped over gurgling. The reasonable looked down at him dispassionately. After all, it's not like he was real. He turned to the soldiers marching up, and stood with his hands behind his back. They stopped.
"Why aren't you running?" one of them asked, in the same voice as the people from before. They probably all had the same voice. Perhaps he had never seen them properly.
"I don't need to. I've figured it out. We're in one of my memories, are we not? You have no power over me now."
They looked at him for a few long, quiet moments. Then, as one, they began to laugh. Great hateful bursts of sound that echoed throughout the burning wreck, and The Reasonable realized that they all must be laughing, every phantom soldier. The lead one stepped forward, and began to grow.
"Well well well, you know do you? The question is, do you
remember?"
As the giant reached out and grabbed him, the Reasonable realized that he had made a frightful error.
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The Babysitter fled across the forest, and the hunters followed. Always behind, always just one step behind. She knew the feeling, knew that the end was coming. Because, deep in her heart, she remembered. her brain had just had to catch up.
The big field, the killing ground, the feeling of arrows boring into her from all sides, these were the things she was approaching. But her feet, and the memory in them, carried her onward.
She broke into the field, legs pumping, breath hot in her lungs (new feeling, that was. Well, old and new. Like a second hand dress. She'd had one, it was orange and she had loved it) and knew that she would,'t even make it halfway before she was cut down. The first arrow should be coming right....about.......
It didn't come. She wasn't stuck in the back. She ran on, feeling some apprehension. That wasn't right. She passed the part of the field where the second one had bitten into her leg, where the third had tasted her shoulder and still nothing. She could do it this time, she could escape!
She slid to a stop in the snow. That was wrong, she though. Behind her, the hoof-beats stopped. She turned to face them.
"What's the deal here?"
The riders in black, who had hounded her for she didn't now how long, looked at one another in confusion. Finally, their leader said, "Run girl. Or we'll kill you."
"Yeah, well, you missed your que by a landslide. I was supposed to start dying back there." she said, pointing behind them.
"We will kill you in due time. Keep running."
She turned around, looking at the treeline she had been headed toward. In her memories, it had been salvation. If only she could reach it, she would live to see her mother and father again (She had a mother and father! She was BORN!). But now she looked at it, really looked, and could just make out the dark shapes hidden among the trees. Big, dark, shapes.
"I think I'd rather have it here, if you don't mind." she said.
The riders shuffled uncomfortably.
"Well," she said, not even turning to look at them. "Come on! I made my choice, and this is what happened. I can't just change it. So either DO IT, or give me an arrow so I can do it myself!"
She heard the knocking of bowstrings. They had no more power over her. She heard the release, and the whistle, felt the pain (all to familiar), and them the memory world shattered like glass around her.
She fell into a desert, face first into a dune, and leaned up on her elbows spitting sand out of her mouth.
"Huh," she said to no one. "I can't believe that worked. Hahahahah." She rolled over on the sand and sat up, peering around. This place looked bad. She stood up. No, she was definitely not in Spectropolis anymore. Nor was she in her own memories. She had never been to a desert, at least not like this. In fact, this place didn't look like a world she knew at all.
She looked out and saw a black shape, kneeling on the ground. She made her way toward it. "Hello! Can you help me? I think I'm lost!"
Hey son, wanna' learn how ta' make witch balls?
Locked
