forums.rs

Forums

Feel the Silence

Quick find code: 49-50-531-56681643

of 97
Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
He chased her down an alleyway and saw her glance over her shoulder, once, and there was terror in those brown eyes, but he did*’t notice that part, he noticed the almond shape, the upward curve of her nose at the end, and continued to race after her.
He chased her through a maze of streets, past fight after fight, but he was ignorant of anything but this girl who captivated his attention. He was catching up to her slowly, although he had to pause when she rounded a bend to find her again, and he was tired, and running in full armor. When he was close enough to grab her arm he reached for her, crying, “Justine, wait!” The girl stopped and turned, too quickly, so that she tripped and tumbled backwards onto the ground, into a pool of blood. Her trembling hands reached imploringly up at Lucas, as she begged, “Please sir, don’t hurt me!”
Lucas stared in wide-eyed shock, almost as stricken-looking as she was. The girl wasn’t Justine. What was he thinking? Now he could see that her curls were too dark to belong to Justine, and she was shorter, and many years younger. How could he have mistaken her? He had just thought – hoped…
Shaking his head, he knelt beside the girl, offering a hand out. “I’m sorry – I mistook you for someone else,” he stammered, “but I’m not going to hurt you. I’m from Varrock.”
When he had hoisted her to her feet, she brushed herself off. Her thin shoulders were shaking in the nightdress she wore. “Thanks, mister,” she muttered, and bolted off, bare feet slapping against the stones.

13-Aug-2009 22:57:57

Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Lucas sank down onto an overturned cart in the street and put his head in his hands. *What the hell?” he whispered to himself, and realized he was shaking too. Why would Justine ever be in Falador? What could he have wished for? That she had come here to find him? That was pathetic.
His hand plunged into his pocket and he paused, looking suspiciously from side to side, but the street was deserted. He pulled out the crumpled envelope and smoothed the crinkles, then stared at the writing on the front, murmuring to himself the words he knew now by heart. Then he began to cry, clutching the letter to his chest as he curled into a ball. As the stars rained down around him, the high finally wore off, and Lucas fell further than he ever had before.

End of Chapter

13-Aug-2009 22:58:34

Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Echo...
Maybe a read later today. I've been doing a lot of stuff off the computer recently. Sorry I haven't read.
Oh, also, we can't accept your application 'til you fix something. Check the 3rd or 4th post of the guild. Can't remember exactly which. Only 'cause it's you do you even get a hint. :P
We do things formal.

14-Aug-2009 21:49:34 - Last edited on 14-Aug-2009 21:54:00 by Chuk

Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
V
Jonah Barron began to feel tired as the sun came up on the second day of the battle in Falador. The battle had raged for two nights and two days, but nothing had changed except the number of the dead. Jonah alone out of his gathered men had taken no breaks; he’d even managed to force Travis down for a few hours of rest, but Jonah himself wasn’t going to rest until all the Kandarins were gone. There was no shame in sleep – he just expected that he would be able to last it out. He’d been trained well, he’d stayed awake for longer, but this was a draining battle, and he wouldn’t be able to stay on his feet for much longer.
Still, he couldn’t imagine sleeping while the Kandarins roamed the city. That would be failure, if he rested before they were gone. He had the power and ability to remove them from the city, and he needed to do that before he slept. Travis had tried to get him to rest, but he hadn’t allowed it.
“Boss, you need to rest,” he’d insisted, but Jonah had shook him off.
“I can’t, not until they’re all gone,” he’d panted.
“You’ve made everybody else rest! It** your turn now!*
*Not until every last invader in this city has been killed!”
“By your own hand? Come on, boss. You need sleep. It’s not a bad thing.”
“I don’t need rest,” he’d snarled. “I know exactly what I’m capable of, Travis. Don’t question me again.” He’d stormed out of the warehouse and back into the battle, and that had been in the middle of the night. Now the sun was rising again, and he was still going strong.
He just couldn’t let them take the city. He could never allow that. He’d done this before, and he’d failed the last time. He’d be damned if he let any of them get away this time.
The civilians streamed around him, as if he was a rock in a stream, and automatically his eyes searched for red hair, for a woman and child, a girl clutching a rag doll to her chest. They weren’t there, of course they weren’t there, but habit was habit.

19-Aug-2009 21:54:46

Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
His heart seemed to stop in his chest as fletching sprouted from the back of a woman tugging a cart filled with clothing and other belongings, and she tumbled into the edge of the wagon, then was knocked backward. Her husband screamed in surprise. Jonah looked away with great effort and sought out the archer. His trained mind processed the downward angle the arrow had come from and surmised that it had come from high above – there – a flash of red, ducking down behind the lip of a rooftop…
“Travis!” he yelled, tugging his sword free of the invader at his feet, and the younger man materialized at his side.
“Boss.” Travis kicked away another invader, then faced Jonah.
“The civilians are getting slaughtered. This is chaos, damnit. What the hell is the matter with them?”
“What do you want me to do?”
Jonah sighed as he looked around the plain in front of the castle, judging how many men he had left. “We’ve got to get them out. Civilians have to be priority, not the castle. We take back the drawbridge and they raise it. Lowering it in the first place was idiotic.”
“They needed to get the white knights out.”
“They should have planned ahead! Someone had the foresight to tell us to come, they should have got their own men out ahead of time too. Whatever. Clear the drawbridge and raise it as fast as possible. The castle can defend itself. We’re wasting our manpower here. I want you to organize these people – evacuate with order. Get the Kandarins off them.” His eyes slid sideways as another arrow sailed through the air and implanted itself in a child, who slumped to the ground instantly.
“What are you gonna do, boss?”
“We’ve got snipers on the roofs. I’m going to take them out.” His voice shook with barely controlled fury. “There are rules of war, damn it, and slaughtering civilians is not acceptable. This is completely unnecessary. And I’m going to stop it.”

19-Aug-2009 21:55:36

Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
He turned and ran toward the building where he had seen the archer. The door rebounded on its hinges as he dove inside, leaping over spilled loaves of bread and the shattered glass of the display window. The stairs in the back led upward, past an apartment, and onto the roof. As he mounted the last steps Jonah slowed, and lightly urged the door open. The sniper’s back was to Jonah; he knelt peering over the rooftop, setting his sights on his next target. Jonah stepped lightly behind him, not making a single sound, and the archer only turned at the last second, in time to see Jonah’s sword ram through his chest. The old soldier smoothly removed his sword and kicked, hard, sending the archer flying down to the ground, where he landed with a crunch on a pile of crates as wood splinters shot in every direction. The bow had been dropped on the ground and Jonah quickly picked it up and notched and arrow, then scanned the surrounding buildings. There! The tip of an arrow caught the sun, peeking out from an open window. Jonah grinned and loosed his own arrow, and snarled with laughter when the archer slumped on the windowsill.
He had spotted and taken out two other archers when he spotted one of the younger men in his group – Derrick, the eager one, running through the commotion toward the warehouse with a body slung over his shoulders. The warehouse had become an impromptu hospital as well as headquarters and medics had gathered there to tend to the hundreds of wounded soldiers. Jonah recognized the boy from earlier – Myren. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the stairs. If one of his team was hurt that bad – at it looked bad, judging from Derrick’s face, and his hurried steps toward the warehouse – he needed to be there.
In the minutes it took him to reach the warehouse, they had laid the boy down on a table, and the medics had gathered round him, talking excitedly. Jonah pushed through them in time to hear the prognosis. “Look at that –“

19-Aug-2009 21:56:02

Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
“It’s so deep!”
“Can’t just sew something like that up, can you?”
“No. Have to amputate that.”
“Cut off his leg?” Jonah exclaimed. He bent over the boy, smoothing his hair out of his face, examining the wound. A deep cut had been scored across his upper left thigh, exposing the muscles of his leg. Blood pulsed out of it in tiny, rapid waves, with each beat of his heart. The boy thrashed angrily on the table, moaning, and blood spurted upward, spraying across Jonah’s face. He pressed on the boy’s shoulders to hold him down.
“Shhh,” he murmured. “Stop moving. You’ll only make it worse.”
“Nnnnooo…Ju-Jus…” he let out a hoarse cry of pain. “Justine, where’s Jus-Justine?”
“Shhh. Stop.”
“I saw her,” he gasped raggedly. “I thought I…I thought I saw her…”
“Sir, we need you to move. We have to amputate the leg.”
“Have you even tried to stop the bleeding?” Jonah barked.
“Am I g-g-g-onna die?” Lucas wailed. Jonah saw tears leaking from his eyes, and he wiped them away with the pad of his thumb.
“No, you’re not, I promise.”
“You have to –“ he stopped again, swallowed, then rasped, “take the letter. Take it!” He thrust his fist toward Jonah, who uncurled his fingers and removed the crumpled pieces of paper. “Tell her – tell her I tried.”
Jonah turned to the medics. “Don’t amputate the leg.”
“Sir, we have to—“
“No you don’t. I won’t let you turn him into a cripple. Clean the wound. Bandage it up. Stitch it. You don’t get to cut it off. That’s an order!”
The medics looked at each other, then nodded their assent. Jonah strode quickly away and sank down onto a crate a ways away, and stared at the piece of paper he held. He hands were shaking terribly. He lifted one to wipe the tears away from his own eyes.

19-Aug-2009 21:56:45

Crystal Smee

Crystal Smee

Posts: 7,994 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
He smoothed out the crinkles and scanned the letter, reading at the bottom, “With all my love, Justine,” and nodded to himself. So the boy was in love. Then he looked at the crumpled envelope, and read, “Lucas Val’Eyra,” and stopped, then read it again. Val’Eyra? “Myren,” he muttered, “Why did you lie?”
He slipped off the crate onto the ground so he could rest his back and reached deep into his own pocket, withdrawing a smooth, rounded pebble, and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers. Oh, how he hated war. How he hated the Kandarins! He was exhausted. His eyelids were drooping heavily. No, he couldn’t rest, he couldn’t let his body betray him like this…
In seconds Jonah slumped back against the crate, his body demanding the rest he refused to give, and dreamed of red hair, slipping through his fingers like liquid flame.

Lucas awoke in a red haze of pain and confusion. Red, he thought with horror, and lashed out, striking at the Kandarins that hovered in the edges of his vision. But they were holding him down, dragging him down to the ground, suffocating him, and he couldn’t fight back. He screamed, but no sound came out, and try as he might he couldn’t throw them off.
“Shut up, damnit,” growled someone in his ear. “It’s all right, you’re safe, so shut up!”
Gasping, he struggled to bring everything into focus. The Kandarins faded away, receding into a pair of faces bent into his vision, wearing helmets with red crosses on them that marked them as medics.
*What happened?” he croaked. His body felt like it was on fire, like he was being jabbed with a thousand needles. He tried to concentrate, tried to feel where the pain was coming from, and all of a sudden his leg flared with pain, and he screamed again.
“You got stabbed in the leg, kid,” one of the medics said, while the other threw himself on Lucas’ midsection to hold him down.

19-Aug-2009 21:57:31

Quick find code: 49-50-531-56681643 Back to Top