✥ TO BE RECKONED WITH ✥
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- [Awakening is backdated to July 19, 2020.]
Elias wasn't really a sit-in-an-office kind of guy. When given the choice between surveying and planning on the actual land he was to work with or being sent a file full of pictures and being asked to send back digital design ideas, Eli would pick on-scene every time.
But not all of his clientele came from within Destiny City, or even reasonable driving range. Not all of them wanted anyone out skulking around their grounds. And more often than not, they were all impatient and picky, wanting things expedited despite how busy summer sessions were for this kind of outdoor work. And he was busy, so he didn't have time to be everywhere at once. He understood why the campus preferred construction done in the summer, since there were less students mulling about. But also everyone wanted the landscaping done in warmer months. That was when it looked nicest.
It was nearing eight in the evening as Elias blearily locked the door to his office and trundled down the hall toward the elevator. All the lights in the tall building were still on, but no one was mulling about besides a janitor wheeling his supplies across the lobby, and a bored-looking security guard seated behind a desk.
Eli waved to him as he headed out the front door and received a very passive nod in return.
The day had been frustrating and draining and there were so many other factors going on with his daughter and his ex that even though he considered this an "early" time of night, he really just wanted to go home and go to bed. He couldn't, of course. He needed to pick up his kid from his mother's and see that she got to bed okay... A long day at work was hardly an excuse to be a bad parent.
He was halfway to the covered parking lot when he first noticed the quiet steps of someone behind him. Eli didn't bother looking. He wasn't that paranoid of a dude. But he was aware, listening for the chance they might come in closer.
Another minute, and he'd made it to the parking lot, past another security guard manning the block rail that allowed cars to enter and exit.
When the stranger followed him into the lot, Elias began to pay a bit more attention. Had someone left work just behind him? He didn't think so. But they'd been out on the street before, with a handful of the building's cameras angled to catch any unscrupulous activity. None of those in the parking lot, though. Just the guard who hadn't said anything as they'd entered. And there was still someone behind him, carefully keeping pace with Eli's long strides.
He didn't say anything, just picked his keys out of his pocket, notching the slender edge of one key up and between his fingers while gripping the fob in his palm. No one was going to mess with him without getting shanked.
The steps neared, picking up the pace quite a bit, and Elias rolled his shoulders in preparation. "There's a whole road, man. Gimme some space," he grunted out warningly. That was the only nicety he was going to offer. One warning, so that whoever was behind him knew he was aware. But it wasn't enough of a deterrent. Fingers clasped in the back of the collar of his button-up, and Elias didn't wait to see what would happen from there.
He whipped around, spinning on one foot as he raised his key-enhanced fist. He had only a second to register that the person following him was just a kid. It was just a scrawny teenager. An unarmed, scrawny teenager dressed in all black, with wide emerald eyes and a sort of gaunt-
And then he was promptly thrown into the hood of a maroon BMW, landing with the sound of splintering glass as he collided with the windshield, setting the alarms blaring as lights ricocheted off the dull concrete walls.
His breath caught in his lungs as Elias slid forward off the car, landing in a stunned heap in front of the bumper as the headlights proceeded to blind him in short, second-long intervals. The boy in black got a step closer with every blink of the lights, but Elias hardly registered anything besides the horn blaring in his ears, the ringing constant, the stuttered catch of his breath. His mind tripped over and over as it tried to process the events, to no avail.
The boy was standing right in front of him now, crouching down with one hand extended as if he might offer to help Elias stand. He didn't, unsurprisingly. The boy's lips moved, but Eli couldn't catch any of the words, and he could barely see to try and decipher what he might have said.
He thought the end of it may have been, "-sorry," but that seemed far-fetched, given the circumstances.
The hand that had been extended toward him dipped toward his chest. Tiny bulbs of glowing purple light seeped out of where the boy had his hand on him, and Eli stared blankly at them, unable to process anything. Unable to even consider that he should move or do something. He was just frozen there, unblinking, breath still choking in his lungs, eyes wide and dazed.
The hand on his chest somehow managed to dip further, past the fabric of his shirt, past his skin-
Whatever blockage had paralyzed him lifted such that Elias became cognizant enough to realize he shouldn't do nothing. His body lurched sloppily forward, both arms snatching out to grab the boy by the cuff of his shirt and yank him near as Elias cracked their heads together, further lodging any thought well out of his mind, but successfully sending the boy sprawling backward.
Elias scrambled to his feet, letting out sharp, staggered breaths as he bolted around the side of the car and behind it, trying to put any number of things between him and this kid while he had the chance-
It was short-lived. The boy collided into his back, smashing him into a concrete wall and holding him there.
Elias scrabbled, pressing his palms against the wall and struggling to make space between it and him so he could use the distance to get out from under the boy- It was just a boy! Why was he so strong? He'd thrown Elias! He'd put his hand in his chest-
"Let go of me!" Eli spat, fumbling an arm behind him.
But the words were stolen by the echoing alarm, still blaring loudly as it honked and blinked its lights. No one had appeared to quell it, though Elias was sure the guard could hear it.
"I said I was sorry," Elias could make out the words now, hissed close at his back as the boy held Eli's face to the wall. "I have to do this."
Do what? What was happening? Why? Why him? Why here? Why now? Elias was just trying to go home from work, like he had countless other times before. He had a daughter to tend to, and he didn't want in trouble in this dark, uncompromising parking lot.
A blip of a shimmer appeared in his peripheral vision. As the boy yanked him by the shirt to flip him forward, Elias saw it better. A sprout had appeared in the wall next to him. A small green stem grew into a shimmery lavender frond right next to his head. It blossomed from a crack in the wall, and it took an instant for it to manifest. But Elias watched it like he'd been watching for minutes.
A startled sound squeaked out of the boy, and Elias felt him tug, felt the momentum of being yanked away. In the same second his fingers slid over the little green stalk, snapping it delicately from the wall, the boy ripped him forward, slinging Elias back toward the center road.
As he was lifted from the wall, he felt something ripple over him like a wave, gently cascading over him like a cool breath, and as he slid across the concrete, it didn't feel as though he'd been assaulted by the same staggering force the boy had thrown him with previously. They were several paces away now, with Elias still on his feet as he stared confused eyes back at the boy.
"You're a knight..." He whispered.
Elias blinked in confusion.
The boy launched himself at Eli, throwing the full force of his momentum forward as he screamed over the blaring alarm of the car, fists raised, body poised for fighting. And even though he was fast, standing before Elias in little more than a blink, Elias found that he wasn't limited by the usual restrictions of how quickly he could move either.
One hand caught around the boy's throat, and the other found purchase in the waistband of his pants, and Elias hauled the boy over his head, twisting and flinging him against the back windshield of some SUV with what he expected was a force not terribly different than what he'd experienced earlier. There was another splinter of shattering glass, another round of offended car alarms to join the first.
Unlike Eli, who'd been practically frozen by the assault, the boy scrambled up, hunkered down and staring wide-eyed back at Eli before he scurried for the concrete barricade that walled off the parking lot. He jumped it, and was gone into the night before Eli could even begin to wonder-
What the ********, what the ********, what the ******** felt like all of his breath had returned to him at once, too much so. It escaped past his lips in a flurry of hyperventilating pants, and Elias staggered backward as if he'd been hit by some invisible force. He looked at his hands, donned now in fingerless leather gloves, still griping that little frond of- Of lavender, he now realized. He was wearing a heavy coat, fitted with a smattering of silver symbols he didn't recognize.
Hat, gloves, boots, coat, chaps? He'd flung that boy clear across the lot-
What the gods' damned actual ******** okay.'
It wasn't quite a voice, nor exactly a thought. It was just a peculiar, gentle sensation, as if simply remembering a time when someone had tried to soothe him. 'It's okay. This is fine.'
'This is who you are.'
'This is who you were meant to be.'
The not-quite words persisted while Elias slowly managed to catch his breath, while the singe of energy gradually faded from his shaking palms. Elias inhaled deeply, bringing the little frond nearer to his face as he drank in the sweet, calming smell. He touched the little silver symbol at his lapel, fidgeted with the tight fit of his belt. Elias-
'No. Sawtooth.'
Right, right. Sawtooth. It was just a word- a weird word, at that. It didn't reasonably seem like it should mean anything to him. Except it inexplicably did. He swallowed, and a persistent thought blossomed in the back of his mind. There was somewhere he needed to go, something he needed to do, something he had to find, someone he had to meet...
Home was the obvious, reasonable answer. He needed to go pick up his daughter and go home and see that she was safe, and he was shaken from this bizarre assault. He absolutely needed to be in the comfort and security of his own home, with his family.
'No. Not there.'
It was just a sensation like a tug, a gentle, guiding push, but it felt so specific. It felt as though someone were giving him directions, though he couldn't hear the words, nor fully form them in his mind.
'Come to me.'
How?
'Be sincere.'
'I pledge my life and loyalty to Saturn, and to Sawtooth. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine.'
It definitely didn't sound like anything Elias would say.
'He doesn't have to.'
Elias didn't have to. There was the uncanny expectation that if Elias tried, nothing would even come of it. They weren't words for Elias. They were words for Sawtooth, this man standing alone in a barking lot with two car alarms going off wildly to either side of him.
'You probably want to get out of there.'
He did. Thoughts flashed rapidly through his mind of the security guard finally coming to see why these alarms were going off and finding Sawtooth standing there with a blank look on his face while two cars had their windshields cracked in around him. Or of that boy sauntering back in looking for more of a fight. Elias' family would be waiting for him, he shouldn't dally-
"I pledge my life and loyalty to Saturn, and to Sawtooth. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine." He whispered the words softly, more with his breath than with his voice, and some force lifted him from where he stood and pulled him away.
To be Reckoned With
Status ▼ Complete
Awakening Word Count ▼ 2181
Awakening Word Count ▼ 2181
