A Magical Anomaly
Prologue 5
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Choice:
[x] Peek over the half wall you're behind, see what fell.
Write in:
[X] Declare that whatever that is, is now your minion
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It takes a few moments for you to gather the courage to look, curiosity overpowering fear after a deep breath.
Your head slowly darts up, inch by inch as you try to avoid any attention until you can get a visual on what's making all the racket.
Brown hair on a white wall backdrop is probably rather noticeable you realize after a moment.
But by then it's too late, though, perhaps some form of luck is still with you.
The… thing? Person? It’s humanoid for sure. A human-like thing covered head to toe in white metal plates… no it's not metal, it bends and flexes as whatever is inside it does so. A shiny fabric maybe?
You can only really see its back, but it's at least five and a half feet tall. Taller than you, but then again, that's not really a challenge. The weird fabric or metal material covers it completely, interlacing like plates of armor. Patterns made of gold light trace the fabric's surface, circles, squares, diamonds, every shape you can imagine melds together into a mesmerizing weave of light that give the white surface an incredibly intricate embroidery. The gold pulses softly, light tracing from somewhere in front of it and along the patterns where it dissipates near the figure's feet.
You hear a weird clicking… like someone tapping fake nails on a table, kind of like what Alice did as she waited… but this is sharper, more metallic sounding somehow. The clicking intensifies. And then the gold light goes red as the figure shrieks. You duck down, and hear the sound of tables bending and folding, something gets thrown, and you see a table crumple against a shop a ways down the courtyard.
Okay good, you don’t think it saw you.
You peak up again, contemplating calling that thing your minion, mainly to overcome the voice of panic that's slowly settling in as a new companion.
The thing threw a table bolted to the floor a good ten meters on its own… what would it do if it caught you in its grasp?
You shake that thought away, slowly shifting along the waist high wall to make some distance from the thing and then peeking at it when you reach a pillar.
You notice its hands are weird… six fingered instead of your five, and all of them sharped into elongated metal claws.
They tap against each other in an irregular pattern, making the clicks you’ve been hearing.
Maybe it’s blind?
Something happens in a split second, you can’t say what, but it's like… like the world losing its colour, the colours in the courtyard vanish and the world becomes grayscale as it slowly spins around to face you.
Your form ducks behind the pillar and you hold your breath.
A step.
Another.
A third…
A loud metallic screech!
And a chair goes flying past your pillar. You barely manage to hold back a gasp. The action making your vision narrow as the screa-
Not the time. Definitely not the time for whatever this trauma stuff is.
You can cry and break down or something later.
You take a quiet breath in.
Mind conjuring up the face you saw as it spun around.
Not a very clear image, but then again, motion blur is a thing.
It definitely didn’t have a face. More of a… gaping void?...
Like a portal of red light that leads into the deepest, darkest pit you’ve ever seen…. Not that you’ve seen any. But you can imagine.
You shake the image away, a second crash making you peek again.
Your eyes meet the gaping void of a second creature.
You freeze.
It keeps staring.
Oddly… you can’t look away…
Time comes to standstill as your heart hammers in your chest.
The gold on its chest slowly goes red as the clicking speeds up.
The world, for lack of a better word, hops. Everything stops, there’s the sound of something smashing against metal, and then everything starts again. There's another sound, like someone huffing in annoyance, but you don’t focus on that, trying to wretch your vision away from the gaping black hole.
Something cold sparks from your chest. The cold flowing up from your center to your neck and then becoming a blazing inferno that rips your neck too far to the side.
Your neck hurts. Like someone grabbed both sides of your head and twisted it as hard as they could to the side.
The loud metallic screech of the creature is met by a second, and the two of them start rushing towards you in a stuttering pattern.
You… You freeze.
You freeze for too long, what do you do? Do you run? Can you outrun them? Can you fight them?
Nononononononono.
Something cuts across your cheek, embedding sharply into your shoulder and forcing reality back into focus.
Your eyes stare widely into the gaping void of the creature.
Your mouth opens to scream in pain, but the burst of FEAR is overwhelming.
Oddly… It's welcome. Your hands move on their own. Pushing the creature away as hard as you can. It goes flying… too far for you to have pushed it that hard…
Subconsciously, you feel every inch of the metal claws as they rip from your shoulder, but you're too focused on getting away. Pain dulled by something, adrenaline or whatever.
No time to focus on that.
Have to run.
Run.
Run where?
A shop?
Uh. Maybe.
Can’t think.
Run.
The world stutters to a stop.
Cold blossoms into warmth under your feet.
It starts again.
Your vision is blurred. But when you focus , you’re cowering in a cupboard. A freezing chill and searing heat in your chest. You're holding a kitchen knife in a death grip as your shoulder bleeds slowly.
It's dark here. The only light coming from the slightly cracked open door. The world outside seems bright. And you can faintly hear more crashing metal in the distance.
But here you are… cowering in the dark.
It’s safe here though…
Hopefully.
You let out a shuddering breath. The pain in your shoulder makes you quietly whimper for a moment. The burst of FEAR is oddly appreciated. It jolts your senses back into focus. Like a strong burst of that coffee stuff you tried with Alice… you hope she's okay. Though she was teleported away. So hopefully she's fine…
You think of yourself, bleeding in a cupboard, kitchen knife in hand… hell of a magical girl. Hell of a villain, can’t even fight what looks like a simple enemy…
You rest your face against the wall of the cabinet and let out a sigh.
You could hide here… really you could…
But your shoulder is bleeding pretty badly…
Something hums next to your ear. A quiet, contemplative noise that settles into a whisper quiet laugh. Your head snaps towards the sound, but there's nothing there.
Are you losing blood fast enough to start hallucinating?
You don’t know…
But you should probably try to find something to wrap your wound or something.
Why does magical amnesia not come with first aid instructions?!
You have your shirt with you at least… though you don’t know where you are… again.
A deep breath settles the anger into a small box.
Time to focus.
Live first. Be angry at fate or whatever later.
You ignore the almost soothing laugh next to your ear.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
And then you... [ Cut some of your sleeve off, and wrap the wound with it. Then sneak around, looking for a directory or something. Maybe there's something medical related you can find. ]