A story I’ve been working on in my spare time. I don’t know if I’ll continue it once school starts, ’cause I’ll most likely be busier.
Critiques and suggestions welcome!

He ran, lungs and muscles screaming.
He could hear the blood-curdling cries behind him, rising undulating in the night.
Gasped harshly, terror biting deeper than bile.
Faster.
Blinked blood and tears from his eyes.
Ran on. Trying hard not to trip on the slippery rocks, logs, and underbrush the forest held.
He missed a step, and found himself suddenly on the ground, moist sandy earth digging into his chin, filling his mouth. Thrashing about, trying to get to his feet before –
A twig cracked to his left. Wide eyes turned towards the sounds.
Felt little relief at seeing nothing was there. Hope against all hope – maybe it was just a rabbit fleeing the nightmare; just like him.
Maybe.
Rotting stench filled his nostrils, causing him to gag. It was sickeningly sweet, saturated to every pore with the scent of decay, death. Blood.
He whirled away to his right, scrambling towards a gap in the dense underbrush – maybe there was yet some way of escap–
Too late.
Hands, like steel bands encircling his neck. Voice speaking gutturally. Foul breath at ear.
“Can’t run, run, ruuuuu-uuuuun anymore, little one.” Hands tightened, harsh chuckling.
A kick to his back sent him smashing against a tree, a second one to his stomach left him doubled over by a bush, retching in pain. Slipping to the sodden earth, he listened to heavy footsteps travel the distance to him.
He though: always imagined dying old, at home in bed, with Felipe and Aniwyn and the twins by my side. His limbs seemed to not be obeying him.
A creak of armor, as the man knelt by his side. Lifted his head roughly. Whisper of a steely being drawn.
“You always knew too much, love. Never knew your limits, hmmm?
A blow to his head.
Pain blossomed, and was swiftly overtaken by the darkness rushing down upon him like a wave.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

“Why do you always have to start your stories like that?“

A childlike sigh followed that question.

“Because, you ninnyhead, the only time stories worth telling about happen are on dark and stormy nights.”

“Whatever.”

Dirty and bedraggled, the speakers sat in a gray, dingy, wholly waterlogged alley in Kerning city, sheltered partially under a drooping cardboard refrigerator box.
The first speaker appeared to be the eldest, thin and wiry with a mop of dark hair hanging over his pale forehead.
The second, a smaller girl, fragile and flaxen haired, sported a contrary scowl, wrinkled brow, and ratty red checkered cap, which perched as jauntily as its wilted self could upon her head.

Dark hair rolled his eyes as if in unspoken refusal of such a reply as hers. “Obviously your parents never taught you anything. Even noobs know that.”

The girl glared. “Pssh, yeah, okay. Says the guy whose parents named him Pomp and Circumstance.”
Pomp made a face. “Shut up, Ani! Do you even want me to tell you a story?”

“Fine,” she glanced archly at him, “please continue, kind sir.”

“No more jabs about my name?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“No more interruptions?”

A drawn out sigh. “Whatever.”

“Now where was I?”

“Stormy night.”

“Oh yeah.” He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, his eyes narrowing. “It was a dark and stormy night. Much like this one in fact. In fact-“

“Pomp?”

“Oh for goodness sakes, what is it now!?”

Ani’s voice suddenly quavered. “Is it really true that all of the stories happen on dark, stormy nights like this? Even the bad ones about monsters and villains an-“
“No way!” He cut her off. “All of the bad guys are really back at their homes sleeping, because they hate rain. It gives them colds and ruins their evil laughing voices, and everyone knows they can’t have that.”

She giggled. “Of course not.”

“Now go to sleep and stop annoying me,” he growled, yanking a tattered, damp rag out of the pile she was sitting on. Tucking it around himself, he squirmed into an awkward lying position, his face towards the wall.

She glared daggers at his backside for a moment before prodding it non too gently with her foot. “You didn’t finish my story.”

An exasperated sigh emanated from the rag-covered form in the corner. “Alriiight then. Here’s your story. There was a man who had a calf, and that is half. He took him out of the stall, and hung him on the wall, and that is all.”

Pomp hoped she would leave it at that. It was dark and cold and rainy, his head ached, and his stomach felt all odd and queasy and empty. He supposed that two days of not eating would make anyone feel the same.

She remained quiet for a few seconds. Then,
“Jerk.”

He ignored her, pulling his makeshift blanket tighter around his chilled body. Why did she always have to be so freaking annoying? Presently he heard her tossing around, moving one rag here, another there, in an effort to soften the hard concrete she lay on.
A long sigh, then silence, but for the sound of her shallow breathing, and the steady patter of the rain outside.

He must have dozed off at this point, because he found himself starting awake some time later with the feeling that some odd, out of place noise had awakened him.
Ani’s breathing was deep, a few soft snores marking that fact that she had not awakened.

His eyes narrowed, and easing his body into a sitting position, he listened carefully. Whatever had made the noise wasn’t making it any longer.
Dragging his rag with him, he stealthily crawled the small distance to the entryway of the box, flipping aside the bit of old tarp that served as their door.
The downpour had slowed to an occasional spattering of rain, and the alleyway shone wetly in the light of the street lamps.
It was empty.
He took a deep breath, suddenly realizing he had been holding it for the last few seconds.

Probably just an old alley cat, he thought, wailing out it’s last hate filled yowls to the city that had killed it.
Yeah, that must’ve been it.

The thought, however, didn’t hold the reassurance he wanted. There remained a lingering unease that lurked like a shadow in the back of his mind, unwilling to be dislodged.

It must be the night.
It was cold. That damp, deep chill that pervades your entire body, no matter how many layers of clothes you have on.
The type of night ‘normal’ people would look out of their warm, bright homes on, and perhaps remark to each other, “I feel sorry for the poor blighter who has to be out in this weather.”
The type of night that only bad things seemed to happen on.

He, of course, had been lying when he told Ani that all the bad guys stayed home on nights like these.
It was the kind of night that just seemed to draw lowlifes, criminals, and evil minions out of their deep dark caves and hide-aways.
It did make a lot of sense to him that story writers began their epic tales with lines such as “It was a dark and stormy night.” Everything seemed so much more dark and hopeless and miserable then, whereas in the daytime one could forget, if but for a moment, the harsh realities of life.

He was about to turn around, crawl back to his old rag, when a sharp whistle split the night’s air. His ears pricked up at the sound. One? No, two streets down?

Glancing outside the box, looking in the shadows to make sure the alleyway was truly deserted, he pulled himself out of the box, which he noted was sadly bedraggled and drooping oddly. He would have to find a new one tomorrow.
The crunch of various loose gravel grinding against the macadam as he made his way to the street entrance seemed so loud to him, that he stopped a moment, listening.
All was quiet again.
He wondered why he was being so much more jumpy than usual. It was probably nothing important, he decided, but all the same, he took more cautions in remaining quiet as he started forward, placing this one foot in a convenient wet tissue, or that foot in that remarkably sound-muffling puddle.

Dodging the old tin cans that littered the ground, and bits of sodden trash, he padded along, keeping close to the rough brick walls that rose toweringly on either side.
Pausing as he came to the mouth of the alleyway, his ears strained to catch any sound out of the norm.
Besides the sound of dripping rain, the wail of sirens from far away, and the occasional shout of truckers in the distance, he thought he could pick out the sounds of hushed arguing coming from his left, maybe the next alleyway.

He padded over, dropping down to hide behind a large trashcan whose edge came right up to the edge of the alley, (for there was still a gap between the wall and the can that he could fit in quite comfortably due to his thin frame) and peered around the corner.

They were closer than he had first suspected, two men crouching by a rusted trashcan, both garbed in assassin gear.
One of them was a hulking brute of a man, which struck him as odd at first sight.
He rolled his eyes. Sins always seemed to be thin, and wiry, and twitchy. What a welcome difference.
This sin fit more snugly into his stupid-oafish-thug-warrior category of thought, and rather resembled a slime in sheer roundness.
The other was slight, definitely more assassiny-looking, with long greasy hair falling in disgusting strings down his back.

Their argument reached a crescendo, and the greasy haired assassin’s back straightened in apparent anger. His harsh whisper reached his ears.
“Well, how do YOU expect us to get him into headquarters without being seen? Magic?”
The other assassin’s thick fleshy lips twisted into a sneer.
“Ah shaddup. Deres a window right ova dere, idjit. We dun’t NEED majicks.”
Greasy hair sarcastically patted a large sackcloth bag sitting in front of him, which Pomp had not noticed before, “Well then, there you got it. We got our way in, and lovey here isn’t getting any lighter, m’dear. I suggest you pick him up and get moving, instead of making all your smart remarks.”
From where Pomp stood, he could see Fleshy Lips’s eyes glinting darkly up at Greasy Hair.
Shivers ran up and down his spine at what he saw in them. Creeping tingles not caused by the icy rain.
If these were indeed the persons the whistles had come from, then what had they been whistling for? Or who?

An unseen hiss came from an area hidden by the trashcan.
“Cossco iss heere, preciousnessesss, and loooook what I foundssss.” The hiss seemed to come from no specific location, and Pomp froze, heart racing.
So entrenched his mind was in the thought that the hiss was coming from behind him, and in the fear of imminent discovery, that he almost let out an audible sigh of relief when across the street from him, a shadow detached itself from the deep shadows around a telephone booth, slipping wraith-likely towards the two thugs.
His relief was short lived, as swiftly following came the thought: he might see me as he passes.

The being was hissing again – reptilian, wet sounding hisses that sounded as if they were coming from the depth of a miry swamp. “Itsssaaa babeeeyss. Found inna boxsssss”

Pomp inhaled, flattening himself against the wall, trying to stay unseen.
As the thing passed not even two feet from where he crouched, Pomp’s eyes darted to a small bundle held in the wraith-like being’s arms. A small hand hung limply down, and in a glint of streetlight, with sinking stomach, he saw a familiar thatch of tangled blond hair spilling down like a cameo against black assassin armor.

Ani.
Oh Zakum, no.
No no no nononono.

A small voice began screaming, screaming, screaming in the back of his mind.
Not Ani. Oh no. They can’t take Ani.

The wraith-like being was making a gurgling croaking noise deep in it’s throat, and Pomp realized with some horror that it was laughing.
“Master will like thisss onee, yess he willss, yess he willsssssss, heessheessheess. So pretty, so young, innoccencessssss, heessheessheess.”
Greasy hair rose to meet the gliding Cosco, surveying the unconscious child in his arms. Smoothing back the hair from her face, he wrinkled his nose almost delicately.
“Good job, Cosco, she’ll be quite nice for him, once she gets cleaned up of all of this filth. Zakum knows how disgusting she is.”
He shuddered. “She probably has.. lice. Ugh.” Wiped his hands fastidiously against his pants.
Fleshy Lips grunted. “Stop alla dat messin ’round. Prettyboy here gonna wake up annytime, so lets get inna headquarders before da police make dere rounds.”
Greasy hair kicked the bag at his feet viciously. “He’s not going to wake up anytime soon.”
A look from Fleshy Lips. “All da same. Lets go, oh wiiiise onee. Bedder to get dat cut on babey’s head fixed sooner dan later.”

Ani still lay silent in Cosco’s arms, but there was a glisten of something dark and wet and trickling that dripped off the side of her head, mingling with her golden hair, dropping silently upon the ground.
Each drip brought something flooding up into Pomp’s throat, something that made his heart pound and his eyes blur.
And the small voice in Pomp’s head still screamed on – violent, horrific, terrifying screams that almost drowned out the roar that came flooding from his throat as he launched himself at the three men.

And then the Cinnamon decided that it was time for an bloggy sort of update, and she verily did so.

A friend of mine decided to save me from not-having-a-computer-land, and therefore dismantled-and-then-fixed my computer.
Apparently the motherboard had died, which thankfully is a problem that doesn’t seem to delete all of your formerly acquired computer hardware/games/documents.
I was therefore able to resume both playing MapleStory and looking at all of my screen-shots, both being pastimes I missed insanely.

The only bad thing about my computer being dismantled was the fact that a few extra screws were left when it was put back together, a problem to which I wholly blame for the fact that my computer has been having horrible lagging spells lately.

If you were measuring these lagging spells (which seem to pop in with nary a warning, and leave with quite the unpredictable haste), they would probably top 10 on the Richter scale, as they sometimes leave me staring at my character standing alone on the screen, then blinking five seconds later at my nearly dead character who seems to be being danced around by a flock of angry robots.

I, of course, could deal with this in a highly mature way, and learn how to be patient.
Or I could deal with it the fun way, and sing songs about death to my sadly seizuring computer.
I usually opt for the latter. Or I growl angrily at the screen.

Whatever the case, no matter what I do, my computer only stops lagging when it stinkin’ well feels like it.

But anyways! Let us take our minds off such sad topics as lagging computers and street children in the rain, and let us ogle yonder screen-shots which reside at the top left of the screen!

1. Faelli is an honest-to-goodness slave driver!
2. This is what happens when you stay up too late, children.
3. The ever-so-great-wormy-beings wouldn’t accept my sacrifice. Racists.
4. Piat and I were hanging out, and I killed a snail, and out popped a doohickey. It was called a ‘golden snowboard’.
Hah. It was SO purple.

Farewell!