|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:26 am
---Somewhere---
There's little left of the village but the whirl of ashes and dust, the smell of burned wood and blistered and cooked flesh and overheated stone. He slides down from the crouching Zoid in silence, eyes narrowed so that their deep indigo blue seems almost black, and as empty as the space between stars. The dust swirls around his boots as he steps forward a pase or two, one hand to the large knife at his belt. Compared to the Zoid behind him, it seems as dangerous as an thrown pebble, but he feels more comfortable with it at his side.
He hadn't started the destruction, but he'd helped to put a finish to it, and now he's looking for whats left.
A tall man, he walked slightly stoop shouldered, though this made him look somehow more predatory than lazy, with his dark eyes and deep brown, sun scorched skin and brown-black hair. He doesn't speak as he walks forward, or even hum. He does nothing at all to break the silence save walk, his footsteps crunching on things in the dust that might be stones or might be...something alive not long before.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:34 am
Fire... everything. He could only see heat, feel the burning rubble around him and hear the snapping of the flames as they consumed the wood of the support beams laying broken around him. How he had survived was anyone's guess. Perhaps the only one in the village that had been so lucky, Hugo had survived. His home lay in ruin around him, pinning him to the ground though with little more damage than a few bruises, cuts, and burns- another stroke of luck.
For a moment he was too dazed to do anything but stare at the hot ground around him, watch the smoke rise off bits of fallen debris, look to the broken bodies of those that he'd been laughing with just a few hours ago. Their faces forever frozen in the horror of their last moments. Slowly, reality began to catch up with the boy's mind. The pain in his body jolted him from the nightmare with a loud cry followed by another bellow as he began to come to face with the death around him.
They'd come from no where... they had no warning, no protection.
Hugo growled, reaching his free arm out to hold to the ground, pulling himself forward in an attempt to free himself. Much of his body was pinned by the wooden foundation of what had been the front porch of his family's home. Where they alive? How could they be? How was he even alive? Nothing stood now- only skeletons of support beams and stone walls... it was so hot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:57 am
The movement through the ruined doorway catches his eye, and he starts toward it with the scuff of boots, scraping up dust with his hands to damp out the flames as he goes.
"Hold still..." HE growls as he walks forward, eyeing the pinned boy. The fire around him flickers around him though he seems heedless of it, casting him into an almost demonic light as he reaches down with dusty hands, scooping more dust at the flames on the pinning wood, and attempts to lift it off the pinned boy. "Out." He says simply, his voice oddly detatched.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 11:02 am
Hugo froze as a figure approached, watching from his burning prision as the man neared. He looked around shortly, clawing at the ground in an attempt to escape before this person reached him, likely to finish the job. To his suprise, the weight on his body was lifted up just long enough for him to scramble out from under the debris, falling to his hands and knees once clear, panting in the smoke-filled air.
He was no older than thirteen though he had a good build for one of his stature and age. The village had been a farming one and to bring life to the dry earth in the area, work was hard and long. His father had left before Hugo's memory could recal even the man's face, leaving him to care for his mother.
"Mother..." he looked back to the house quickly, his aqua eyes wide as he searched the rubble for any sign of life. "MOTHER?!"
He listened, only to be returned with silence and the groaning of wood as it gave into its weakness and crumbled into the ruins further.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 11:20 am
Kaspar glanced around at the falling timbers, and down at his hands, one of which is red from the heat and splinters, though he looks at them as though they belong to someone else. "It's coming down....come on." He notes, in that same cool detatchment, putting a hand out to Steer Hugo out of the falling building.
Terrible to loose a parent, especially for a child. No...take that back. It depended on the parent, some were bad. Some needed lost...but they had to go. This was important...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 11:25 am
"You did this?!" Hugo looked up to the man, pulling away from his hand, "What happened!? What did we do? I don't understand!"
Maybe it was the heat, or the overall shock of the situation. The boy was obviously a proud one and dispite the tears rolling from his eyes, he held his ground. His mother could be alive- any of them could, "We have to look for survivors!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 11:31 am
The man starts at your accusation, as though just for a moment he'd been forsed into contact with the carnage, and horror flicks across his dark eyes like the flicker of a silver fish in dark water.
"NO." he says, insistantly. "Someone else..." He shakes his head sharply. He hadn't burned this place....he had no reason to, though the flicker of emotion fades quickly from view.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 8:40 pm
Hugo looked back to his fallen house, running his trembling fingers through his streaked hair. The main support finally gave into the weakness that the fire had gnawed into its base. The rest of the building fell down onto itself, sending a cloud of ash and rubble out towards them. He moved his arms up in front of his eyes to shield them from the dust, swirling hot around him, through his hair and tattered clothing. Once the dust settled he looked blankly to the glowing wreckage. She would have been asleep... never have seen it coming.
The boy lowered his head, closing his eyes sharply as he backed away from the wreckage. "...where..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:45 am
"Gone." Kaspar noted, blandly, watching the building colapse and blinking at the swirl of sparks and ashes. "They're gone." He glances back the direction he came, where the Zoid waits at the edges of the carnage, a great dark beast that looks almost as though it were surveying the carnage. "We should go too. It's dangerous..."
The people who actually had burned this place to the ground might come back, and outside of the Zoid..." His eyes flash again at the thought.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:00 am
The boy starred into the flames a bit longer, wiping something from his eyes before turning back to the stranger. The fire's light blazed off the glazed orbs as he looked the man over, his brow creasing slightly. He didn't know if he could trust him... but the man had saved his life. A few more minutes and he'd have been crushed with his home. If anything, he owed the stranger that much.
"...where do I go?" He glanced to the zoid then back to the man, "I don't want to be dumped off in some orphan home. I won't." His tone sharpened.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:24 am
"Where do you want to go?" Kaspar asks, walking toward the standing Zoid. He studies his hands again as he walks, picking out a splinter with an expressionless face, again as though his hand belonged to someone else. He studied the sliver of wood for a moment, an flinch passing belatedly across his expression as though he'd only just now realized that it had hurt. "We can't stay here."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:33 am
"I... I don't know." He followed after the man, forcing his eyes forward. He could make out bodies of the villagers, those who hadn't been as fortunate as his mother had in the manner of death... the horror of their deaths still frozen on their faces- those that had faces. Hugo's stomach turned at the scent, everything was swirling now, he couldn't bring himself to cry or scream. It wasn't real... just a nightmare. Later on the gravity and truth of it all would catch up to him but for now he was glad to be numb of it.
"I've...never been outside of the wastes."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:48 am
"Now's a good time then isn't it?" The man shrugs, walking back toward the Zoid slowly, glancing around at the carnage, his expression flickering between 'numb' and 'dark'.
We really shouldn't bother you know...
I know...but...
We don't even know if he wants to come. Ask him.
Don't. It'll be a mistake. He'll hate us.
Why would he do that? Don't be silly...
Because he might think we really did do this...but still...
"Come with me...if you want. Stay if you want." He offers, as though it makes no difference at all. "I'm going. There's nothing else that can be done here."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:21 am
"Go with you?" He frowned a bit, following after the man a bit quicker now. He didn't want to stay, there was little chance that he'd survive in such a place. The nearest town was days away on foot, he'd have to cross the wastes and potentially encounter more of the gang that had done this to his home... not to mention the heat.
"...where do you go?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:22 am
"Home." He replies, curtly, though there's a hint of amusement in this cryptic proclomation. "I go home. Sometimes where people pay me to be, but always home." But never children. That was the rules, never hurt the children.
Never the children.
Anger flashed inside boiling and roaring, though outside it didn't surface at all. It was almost loud enough to stiffle the memory of screams.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
