⊱🌹 ⟿ Hopefully this will post this time. Sorry this is so long between posts. I need to explain about the following piece. In the challenge, we were limited to 1500 words. This made me remove a lot of what I normally would have included. I am apologizing now for the disjointednesss and awkwardness of the writing in this one. Normally, even first drafts are better than this. Future drafts will most likely be much more detailed and better flowing than this first draft. However, I thought it would be interesting for you all and me to have a record of the changed which happen in this piece once the limit is removed. I do see this being expanded at some time in the future. As usual if you created or know who created the graphics used, please let me know so I can credit you or them. I hope you will enjoy it as it is. ⟿ 🌹⊰
Gaur
**** Trigger Warning: Blood, urine, violence, and mature subject matter involved. #WTW ****
@~~ Rough Edit ~~@
The three bodies pressed against the cold, marbled wall. It took another five minutes for the fourth body to join them. Soft whisper said “What took so long?”
“Trying to make sure we weren’t followed,” came the whispered answer.
Movement between the fourth and the first bodies was the next silent exchange. The first started sidestepping against the wall in the darkness. One by one each moved further down the way towards where they hoped would lead them out. They found an opening in the marble wall and moved through it disappearing into the wall before it closed behind the fourth body.
It was dark and silent between the walls. They had no idea how long they had to go from here. They couldn’t even see an outline of others as they moved. Their hands move up to join with hand of the figure in front of them. Each of them moved to close ranks before they moved forward faster.
Running would make too much noise, not counting the sound their heavy breathing would cause. They knew, if they were going to make it out, they had to go slowly. However, they were being chased. They knew what was chasing them. They had seen it made before they took this flight for freedom.
Slowly, they moved forward the memory of the fifth of their party driving them forward. She had been the weakest. Her half-blood made her that way. No pure blood was ever as sickly as she had always been. They had only known her since they had all been brought here. Truthfully, they hadn’t known each other before they had been kidnapped.
• <<────≪•◦⚜◦•≫────>> •
The daily routine started shortly after they woke in the cells the first time. Each morning someone came in to take blood and urine samples before dawn broke. During the darkness after they had been left alone again, they started talking between themselves. First they learned their names: Ryllae, Adanell, Laredyra, Tanaren, and Talaedra. Then they learned a little about each other as they tried to determine why they had been kidnapped.
Each of them represented one of the ruling houses of elves. All of the were pure bloods, except Talaedra. They couldn’t figure out why she had been chosen. Surely there was a healthy, pure blood who would have been a better choice. The smallest and oldest among them, she was very sickly and had been taken while hunting healing herbs when taken. Perhaps, it was this sickness or just opportunity which had lead to her kidnapping.
Copyright Fantasy Flight Games – Middle Earth Enterprises
Several hours later, the sun beamed horizontally above them through slits allowing the light to beam across the ceiling. Several moments passed before a robed individual came in. It slid food trays in between the bars of their cells for them. They ate, then placed their trays just outside their individual cell. The robed person came back many hours later to pick up the emptied trays before replacing them. They would leave again. This routine repeated three times a day.
After the first day, they knew something was in the last meal which made them all sleep. When they woke to the demand for blood and urine, their trays from the last meal was gone. There was still time before the second meal when they started talking amongst themselves again.
After three days, Talaedra complained her food tasted funny. She couldn’t say exactly how funny, just that the food she was given didn’t taste like it had the days before. None of them liked the food. She said now it was almost impossible to eat.
“Try,” Ryllae said. Ryllae was the farthest away from Talaedra. “They aren’t going to fix you separate food. They barely feed us as it is.”
The others had agreed. Talaedra forced down the food. They all hoped she would keep it down since none of them wanted to smell vomit till the next feeding time. Talaedra had managed to keep the food down, but she made the same comment about the next two meals of the day.
“Here let me try some,” Tanaren said putting his hand out to take a sample of her third meal. She handed him some. He tasted it and gagged immediately. “That is horrible. You weren’t kidding. Don’t eat anymore of that.”
There was a look each of them passed through the five of them. Something was different in her food. She pushed her tray out of her cell without eating anymore. Each of them had passed food down to her so she at least had something to eat. They all had decided to keep them all strong, as strong as they could be, days earlier in case they found a way to escape.
All of them laid down as the drugged food put them to sleep. The next two days were the same. Talaedra’s food was different, so they each shared theirs with her. She was growing noticeably weaker.
The third morning, Talaedra’s arm was grabbed a second time after blood was taken. She cried out causing all of them to move to the side of their cells closest to her. She cried out again in the dim light of the moon. There wasn’t enough light for anyone other than Tanaren to see her fighting as two more needles were jabbed into her arm. They were removed after emptying whatever was in the syringe.
When she was released, she was pushed back from the front of the cell with enough force to put her on her back. She crawled to where she knew Tanaren was. He felt where the needles had left their deposits in her muscles. She whimpered as he relayed what had happened to the rest and tried to comfort her. In the relative darkness, they talked about escaping before anything more was done to any of them while Tanaren held her through the bars.
The sun had not risen yet so only the pale dawn light lit the cells when Talaedra pulled away from Tanaren abruptly. She was coughing as Tanaren called her to come back to him.
“No,” Talaedra started yelling, “No, get away from me. Please get away. Don’t let me touch you!”
Tanaren reluctantly moved back from her side of his cell to Laredyra’s side. They stared in the dim light towards Talaedra as she continued to scream. Her screams turned from words to screams of pain. The pain they heard in her voice shook them. Between them they tried to determine what was happening as her body twisted and contorted.
The doors slammed open as lights beaming across at the cells. There were the loud booming, explosions and fire shot across to Talaedra’s cell like an arrow. There was a thud as her screams stopped.
• <<────≪•◦⚜◦•≫────>> •
Now, they were running from the creature they had seen dragged from her cell. Each of them knew what had been done to her was going to be done to them if they were recaptured. They weren’t going to let it happen. They had failed her, but they would not fail each other.
They stopped as Adanell stopped moving forward. Silently, they waited to hear the opening of what they hoped was the wall to let them outside. Ryllae felt Adanell’s hand leave hers just before the light of the waning moon hit her eyes. Adanell helped her out then did the same for Laredyra. Finally, he took Tanaren’s hand to help him down and out. They pressed against the outside wall after Tanaren closed the wall.
Staying still only until the moon disappeared behind dark cloud cover, they linked hands again to run into the forest only a few annas from the building they had escaped from. It would take their combined effort to make it to the forest in the few moments the moon would be covered. As the light disappeared, they sprinted across the open yard to the forest trying to make it in the few moments of darkness.
They heard it behind them. It was literally just inside the wall as they made it to the forest. If there was any of Talaedra left in the creature’s mind, it would know of the paths through the trees on land and in the trees. However, she was a half-blood. She wouldn’t know the underground pathways to which they ran unless her father was the elf kin. They would have to take their chances through the underground to get safely to the city.
Reaching the ground entrance, they hurried down into the darkness before Tanaren closed the path behind them. They paused hearing her sniffing and clawing at the ground to find the entrance. They took off through the tunnel. They had escaped the creature she was now…Gaur.
⊱🌹 ⟿ Note: Representations of the characters are not exactly what I see in my mind. They are the closest representations I was able to find which is why some are obviously different from others of the same character. ⟿ 🌹⊰
Mia Mina's Chaotic Realms 