The Meeting
As my introduction, I must (no matter how much it wastes my time and yours for whoever reads these things) give the Disclaimer's warning. If you are under the age of 18 or are in a state that prohibits your age group from yadda yadda yadda then don't read this story. Seeing as how I was only 14 when I wrote this, I don't rightfully think you'd listen to this anyway. So going back to the INTERESTING thing at hand, I hope you enjoy the story and please critique me as you see fit.
The Meeting
Despair...
No... Nooo!
Destruction...
... Make sure all of it burns to the ground...
Judgment...
Ye are found guilty of bringing calamity and death to thine own home, Nothing's Child. The payment for such a gruesome crime... is DEATH!
... Escape... Why couldn't you have believed me? It wasn't me... it wasn't...
"-o. no... NO!!!" Lurching up, breathing heavily, he sits there, drenched in his own frightful sweat. "Why can't it ever go away? Why does it haunt even after all this time..." He grabs the small blanket, years of use making it mud brown in appearance, off of his legs and pushes it aside from him, revealing brittle, scrawny, and extremely dehydrated-looking legs; which, to someone far off who was observing, would think him a walking skeleton. He grabs a thin looking deer-skin canteen, and turns it upside-down, frowning grimly as he doesn't feel anything but dust fall out. Groaning, he slowly gets to one of his knees, then to his feet. He stretches his lean, slightly muscular body and hears bones and joints cracking into place.
After one final crick, he slowly leans down, going on all fours, and stretching like his old brother and friend, the only one who had survived since he had stayed close to protect his younger brother from certain death. The one who was also killed by his very own clan-brothers... "No!" Soft, sorrowful tears hit the ground as the memories resurfaced once again. "Anything... anything but that..." As if to answer his plea, a strong, sandy wind blew around him, making him wince with pain as more debris clung to his open, slightly bleeding wounds. He regains his former posture, standing as any young human would. He faces towards where the wind was blowing from as a miniscule whiff of it makes him determine that he was close to a body of water. "Guess that's somewhat of a direction to head towards. Better head out before it becomes too hot." He turns to grab what little gear that wasn't buried under the sand. The mud-brown blanket, the deer-skin canteen, a pair of gloves, and his sand-goggles were all he had and all he needed for now. It was early morning when he set out towards his destination, dehydration making him move all the more speedily.
By his estimate, he had walked about 6 miles before the sun finally started showing over the dunes and the temperature began to pick up hurriedly. "It's hot today," he says as he continues to walk. "Well, it's a desert..." he internally responds to himself. He slides a palm against his forehead in hopes to divert some sweaty muck away from his eyes. Continuing his walk silently, intentions on making sure nothing would hear him and he wouldn't have to fight his way to whatever hope of water there was up ahead, something quickly catches his attention. He looks over and focuses his vision to the east and notices some_thing_ heading towards him. He sighs heavily for the second time that morning. "Guess it was too much to hope for an easy walk." As it draws ever closer, it's clear that an evil, hungry gleam had begun to take root in its darkening, amber-ruby colored eyes. He braced himself for a fight to the death. He was too tired to run away even if he did manage to beat it and he knew it would come after him again and again until it had him. As he stared squarely at the enclosing predator, a bright flash blinded both of them. Everything went black as it seemed that the whole world was crumbling away.
He begins screaming but silences himself when he hears a gruesome growl; sounding so far off it seemed to be a good few hundred feet away. He sees this as his chance to run away but his opportune moment doesn't turn out too well as he rams straight into a tree. Backing away in pain and slight confusion, he regains some of his composure while taking in his surroundings. Somehow, he had ended up in a forest. Little sounds like water hitting dry dirt made him look at the ground. Sparsely laid puddles of amber and scarlet splayed themselves across the ground. Another droplet joining the puddles forced him to raise a hand to his forehead. As if being without food, water, and plenty of open wounds strewn across his body wasn't enough, now he had a bloody gash across his face, beginning from above his left eyebrow, lashing its way at a downward slope over the middle of face across his nose, to a few inches below his right eye. After gathering his wits, he made a conscious effort to find some herbs for his numerous wounds. Within thirty minutes, he'd managed not only to find some herbal plants, but also leaves to place over the wounds to help them heal faster while making sure they wouldn't leave too many scars. As if to dash any hopeful thoughts he might have had left, a crack of thunder boomed through the canopy overhead. His gaze drifted upwards at just the right time to see a flash of lightning sear across the sky. Water droplets steadily precipitated a mile away from him under the encroaching black clouds above. Tree branches began swaying lazily as the gales of the storm began to arise. Uncertainty as to why a thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere upon the already established curiosity as to how he'd ventured into a forest directly from a desert proves too much for his weakened state of mind and body.
A dizzy spell rampages into his mind and makes him stumble backward a few steps. As Fate would have it, the final step he takes sends his world upside down. Literally in only a few milliseconds worth of time he is provided a swift trip over a boulder that quickly descended into a full-blown roll down the hill breaking through the forestry. Somewhere along that steep hill, he hits a very firm ledge and, as Fate would have it yet again, he feels a few ribs be broken followed up by a quite sickening sound and feeling of an arm going ways human arms are not supposed to go. As he tries to grab hold of something with his only arm, the poor child sees that he is about to plunge into a river that now is raging due to the savage rain and billowing winds. A saving grace appears in the form of a firmly rooted tree leg. He grasps for the slippery appendage and manages to grab it. Unfortunately, his earlier observation was mistaken. The "tree leg" is actually a branch that, ungraciously, is lightly planted within the ground. The flimsy thing cracks and he sighs and smiles lightly through all of his torturous pain. Amidst the torrents of water that are beating him down from the heavens and clutching his ankles, as if begging him to let go so that it may show him a watery grave, the inglorious sound rings out. Finally, the branch breaks from the weight of not only his mass, but under the added pressure of hydration wearing it down.
A gasp for air and a splash are the only barely audible sounds heard as he crashes into the river. His mind snaps to attention as he desperately kicks and claws his way to the surface of the enraged flows as if his body wasn't even in the least bit of agony. Bursting through the break of water had felt like his greatest victory and worst defeat. All around him, everything he was witnessing was in a total uproar. Nothing was as it was supposed to be in a normal, scenic visit. He does what any other person in a situation like his would do. Panic. Losing what little buoyancy there was to have, he begins to drown. Yelling out for someone to help him seems to only earn him a response in mouthfuls of water. As the river's current carries him out into the middle of the maelstrom, what little energy he has left is stripped away as the waves finally take him under. Flashes of light and memories of his life come over his vision. Within an instant, he realizes this is what it means to be dying. "Not yet... Not here..." Losing touch with the outside world, a blue mirage swims up to his now fading self and yells to hold on. A deathly grim grin once more slithers its way onto his features and, thinking bleakly, he utters his final regards. "Sorry... you're too late..." The lightning shies, the thunder silences, and the last thing of this world that he sees begins to fade. "So very, very sorry..."