Ruins: A Memory of Man's Destruction [Closed]

[CounterAttack]

Jenna was hesitant about responding immediately to Charly's question. The two driving factors in that hesitancy were that she didn't know this girl, and as a result her regular shyness had kicked in. She had tried to change that, tried to be more outgoing, but she had always gotten someone else to introduce people to her, and her mother took care of the social aspect of the work they shared.

The other important part was that she barely knew where she was herself. This was the first time she had actually entered Ruins. Many a time she'd seen them from the comfort and relative safety of the woods she knew well, but she'd never gone in until today.

"Erm, I, uh... I'm not so sure myself," she answered after a few seconds, standing up and helping Charly to her own feet, having returned her canteen to her belt. "It's Ruins, though, no doubt about that. I, er, I came in with three other guys, but we split up to investigate the Ruins we'd found... we were over that way, I think," she explained, pointing in the direction she recognised as the way from which she had come. The only familiar landmarks were the building she'd skirted around and rubble she'd climbed over to reach her new acquaintance.

 

[RBMidknight]

"We're here" Alexis said.

Caelan found himself holding his breath as he stepped around Alexis to see better. For the distance they'd traveled he expected something majestic and huge. And the Towers certainly were huge. The state of decay, the broken concrete and pieces of debris, they were the same. But then, there was something about this area that made the rest of the Ruins seem common. Caelan walked slowly across the bridge, looking up at the windows, up at the Towers, trying to look at everything at once. As he moved he paid little attention to where he was walking. Bit os debris was kicked around by his feet as he walked. Caelan stepped on top of a small pile of debris, causing something to crack loudly underneath his foot. Caelan froze at the sound. He shifted his feet then looked down to see a piece of glass made of up many colors. 'Wait..' It wasn't all one piece of glass. It was several pieces. Every piece was a different colors and it looked as though the pieces had been fused together somehow. Curious about the colors Caelan looked around for Alexis. He saw his cousin beckoning him forward. Caelan hurried to catch up.

As they walked into the Towers Caelan forgot his question about the colored glass. In its place he wanted to know what this building had once been. It was huge! The door alone was easily bigger than his home. But Caelan didn't have a change to ask any of his questions. They were delayed by the arrival of a stranger. Bloodied and battered, the newcomer was clearly injured. And his message was shocking...

"I know him, he's a Scout, do we take this back to the Elders?" Alexis asked.

Caelan was relieved that his cousin knew the messenger. But it didn't decrease his alarm at the message. Metal Men? Here? They were the beings of stories. Stories that Caelan could only get his father to tell when it was late at night and Caelan's mother was asleep. Stories of mysterious weapons and shining skin. They weren't men. Well...they weren't...before...

Caelan glanced over to where the messenger had slumped over. Were Metal Men really made of flesh? The bloodied dagger seemed to be proof. Either way..."The Elders would want to know." Caelan said to Alexis. "Mother can help the messenger." he added.

 

[Shapsters]

Charly leaned on Jenna as she got her legs back, her breathing was much smoother now and the world around her had stopped spinning for the most part. Charly's face displayed a confused grimace, yet in mind she was quite content. Stumbling across The Ruins was something almost all children dreamed about growing up, sure the stories were scary and the warnings were clear, but who didn't want to explore in a mysterious land full of ancient history? And while Charly had matured over the years, the allure of The Ruins still bounced around in her head.

On top of that she found someone new, someone who seemed to like Charly to a certain extent and had the decency to help someone who was down and out. Indeed Charly felt like the day had taken a positive turn, considering the way it began.

"Well what are you planning on doing now then?" Charly asked, now fully standing on her own terms, "I'm feeling much better and... well since we are here..."

 

[Lost In The Void]

Its not simple, making the decision between saving one's tribe, or rather the potential to save one's village the pain suffered by so many, one forgets all that though, when a man lays bleeding in front of you. The ragged gasps of a wounded man take all logic and reason from your mind and evoke the compassion and sympathies of humanity, an inherent strength and an inherent weakness. Even as Caelan spoke of saving him, Alexis knew that it could have been a futile effort, but at the same time he needed to do something. He held the knife in his hands, the crimson blood still damp and sticky against his fingers. The tribe would never believe him if he came back alone with the knife.

"Here give me a hand with this guy," Alexis said, taking one of the man's arms and slinging it over his shoulder, giving the man some support to lean on. His cousin did the same and they began the long journey back to outside of the building. As they walked, Alexis could hear the breathing of the Scout become more and more laboured and his steps grew heavier.

Finally they needed to stop; Alexis laid the man against a small piece of stone rubble; the red stain covering his chest had grown larger and a sweat had built over the man's brow; it was looking less and less like the man was going to make it to the Village. He took a knife from his own belt and began to saw at a piece of fabric from the Scouts clothing. He lifted the shirt and gagged as he saw the wound oozing a mixture of blood and puss. Trying his best to ignore the smell of infection , he put the rag in the man's mouth and began to cut at the infection, he had asked his aunt how to do this kind of field work after he had hurt himself in the Ruins for the first time, he scraped at the infected flesh, the man's screams loud, but muffled slightly by the rag in his mouth.

Finally the infection was cut out; Alexis took some water from his canteen and watered the wound, washing both old and new blood from the wound. He cut another strip of cloth and bound it tight across the wound. The Scout whispered a muffled thank you through the cloth and Alexis pulled it out.

The trip moved a bit faster after that, a risk of blood loss averted; they moved out of the building and back into the bulk of the Ruins; they needed to find a less treacherous way out of the Ruins, the man wouldn't be able to make the trip that they had previously made. It was unnervingly quiet in the Ruins, particularly because of the extent of the man's wound, Alexis feared that they were here, the Metal Men, determined to do to them, what they'd done already to so many.

Suddenly the silence was cut through like a hot nice through butter, a shout of "I'll be right down," alerted Alexis immediately and he moved quietly towards the voice with his cousin, they hid the injured Scout out of the way to avoid more injury to him. He saw a young man, perhaps close to his age; his wrist wrapped in a red soggy bandage. Deciding to gamble, since they were on different levels of the building, he shouted to the boy, "Hey, what are you doing in here, don't you know that the Ruins are dangerous, what is your business?

 

[elementsoul]

The clanging of the metal stairwell crashing to the ground outside was lost to Yasmina. The voice that arrived a few minutes later wasn't lost to her. 'Stay there! I'll be right down!' Yasmina looked up to see a dirty blonde haired boy around her own age looking down upon her. So Prince Charming arrives. The only problems are that I don't need a Prince Charming and more importantly we're in the Ruins and odds are if you're in the ruins you aren't Prince Charming.

Yasmina was about to open her mouth to reply but stopped when another voice came from the floor she was currently on herself. Two boys in the same building in the Ruins. I don't like this in the slightest. The boy above had shifted his attention away from Yas. Using this opportunity Yasmina got up as quietly as possible. Looking around the room for an alternative exit Yasmina only found that her only way out was the doorway into the hallway with the second boy, and a sting to her pride as the machine she had seen before now laid on the ground, with its side broken off, revealing an empty interior.

Not knowing if the second person knew she was in the room or not Yasmina removed the crossbow from her bag; making sure that the pressure was still at max. Not wanting to expose herself if that was the case, she moved herself slowly to a part of the hallway wall that was damaged and allowed for you to see into the hall. Steadying the crossbow and changing her position slight to see farther down the hall, two people who both appeared to male came into view.

 

[CounterAttack]

"Quite honestly... well, I came here to look around, see what goes on in here," Jenna explained to her new acquaintance. "And evidently very little happens," she added as a joke, gesturing to the multitude of silent structures and piles of destroyed, corroded metal. They all looked so much alike, despite their obvious disrepair in varying states.

"One thing, though, is that I'm trying to remember the way I came in, and I'm leaving a trail behind to help," she said, quickly looking around before she recognised the place from which she had come. There was a piece of jagged metal in a nearby building that stuck up like it was impaling the materials below; that was how she remembered it.

A little lost for words - a result of her shyer side finally kicking in, later than usual - Jenna stumbled across her next question. "So, um... where d'you, uh, want to go? Anywhere, um, catch your eye?" She looked away from Charly as the words haltingly left her mouth: the hesitation and slight waver in her voice was a dead giveaway that she was a tiny bit uncomfortable in the presence of someone she hardly knew.

 

[RBMidknight]

'You have no right to demand why I'm here when nothing here belongs to you.'

'Is he a thief? Or a scavenger?' Caelan wondered. 'Why does he care about the stuff not belonging to us?' Caelan tilted his head back to look at the young boy who'd spoken. It was hard to judge height since he was a floor up but he seemed young. He was blonde, or had really light brown hair. Caelan took a step away from Alexis so he could see better. When he resettled he noticed that the boy's attention was focused on Alexis. Which was good. Caelan resisted the urge to glance back to where the messenger was hidden. They needed to get that man home.

Caelan lowered his gaze and began looking around the immediate area. Maybe there was a faster route nearby? But all he saw was more broken pieces of stone. More glass. Plus the giant hole in the ceiling. Caelan's gaze stopped abruptly on a particular broken wall. There was someone there. Caelan blinked. But the figure was still there. 'Another person? The newest stranger was a girl. Tall, with dark hair. She held something in her left hand. A strange device. Caelan frowned at the device waiting for the word to click in his head. He knew the word, his father had taught him. It was a weapon. One not commonly used. What was it?

'A crossbow!' Caelan realized with alarm. With more power than a regular bow it could easily clear the distance to himself or Alexis. Without looking away from the girl Caelan spoke quietly. "Cousin," he said slowly. Caelan closed his hand over the edge of his cloak. It was a precaution. If he needed to move fast the cloak was going to need to be out of the way. "There's another." he finished.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Alexis heard the whisper in his ear and his eye's flickered over to the girl who held a crossbow in her hands, "Please don't shoot," he said, his voice almost mechanical due to the fear and stress of the situation. They were surrounded and he didn't know if the two others were in league, "We're just from the Village, I don't mean to intrude on whatever you're doing here."

He looked back at the person above them, "You're right, I don't have a right to demand why you're here but I'm instead asking out of curiosity. There isn't much reason to come out this way unless you have either a taste of adventure in your heart or a streak of stupidity that will get you killed," he thought about the Scout laying and still dying as they debated who was in the right, "However you could help us, we're trying to help someone; they're hurt and we need to get out of the Ruins."

This was it, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, mimicking his cousin, he prepped to flee, the crossbow was more pointed at him than his cousin though; made sense that he would be in the most danger, after all he was the one who got his cousin into this.

 

[elementsoul]

Damn. Yasmina was watching the person farthest down the hall and knew that she had been spotted; even before the closer of the two opened his mouth. With no reason left to attempt to stay hidden Yasmina rose from behind the wall, keeping the crossbow aimed at either of the two down the hallway, and walked backwards along it till she was able to side step through what used to be the location of the door.

Getting tired of all the talking that was going on since it was worthless towards helping her find out if the people who showed up were a threat or not. Yasmina looked back up at the boy behind her to confirm that she was the only one with a weapon currently drawn. A small nearly unnoticeable smile crept across Yas' face as it was clear to her that she held the most control.

"Don't forget your place right now. I have a weapon on you that will kill you if I hit you in your chest or your back so running won't help. You should probably know that I don't like the fact that the three of you basically showed up at the same time, and I don't know if this is some little act between you two but it's becoming redundant. I'm not far from fair however, you can start convincing me that I shouldn't have a reason to think you are lying, if you bring that injured person here. Although your friend will have to stay behind in case you are lying and you think about trying anything stupid." Yasmina said with a commanding tone as she gestured towards Caelan to be the one to stay behind.

"You also forgot the most important reason for coming to the Ruins. Duty. For those people who have the job of finding or creating the next thing that will help their tribe, it's their duty to come here. To find what is left behind and to learn from it and turn it into something useful for everyone." Yasmina stated with more pretentious hint to her voice in place of her commanding tone from a few seconds ago.

 

[Lost In The Void]

"You expect me to take an extremely injured man through this carcass of a building to satisfy your own curiousity," Alexis was becoming annoyed by this girl and her sense of power immediately going to her head, "I might as well just cut his throat, he'd be dead all the same if he tried to make this trek, do you not see his blood on me? This is not someone with a sprained ankle, this is a man that needs to get to a hospital immediately so that someone might help him."

When he had seen the girl's own small smile, he adapted quickly and moved to sound more confident in his delivery, "You think that crossbow is going to be able to kill us both before one gets away, you're absolutely mad, one would get away and murder is not taken lightly, even more so that your attack would likely kill another person through neglect. I believe the punishment for murder is death by stoning as well, isn't it?" his own smile was plenty apparent at this point, "Regardless you have two options, shoot me and by that, kill another at the same time, or you can trust me and help me, either way, we're done negotiating, I don't have time to swap words while someone bleeds to death."

Alexis spun on his heels, making the first move, so that he would be the first target. Before leaving though, he looked at the other boy in the building, "How about you? Would you save a man who was dying if you had the chance? Are you the kind of person to do more than ask demanding questions?"

While this occurred, there were, of course, more people exploring the Ruins; one remained alone as well, his friend long since left him; Sam had been exploring for a couple hours now, the wonderment of the Ruins had still not worn off; he was careless and so he easily fell into problems. The first was a simple cave-in from a building that twisted his ankle and the second had been a gash caused by a stray piece of sticking out steel. Bruised and battered he wandered on though, immune to an impending doom that was about to fall about him.

A quiet hiss and a crack of foliage caused him to spin around. He heard a second sharp intake from the metal masked individual that stood in front of him. His heart stopped; it was the Metal Men, the boogeyman of recent stories, right there in front of him.

An explosion sounded in his ears and a sharp pain racked his body. He felt the origin point of the pain and his hand returned sticky with his own blood. It was as if the breath had been taken from his body, the only breath he could get filled his lungs with his own blood.

Light headed, he sank to the ground trembling, a few tears leaking in his eyes, alone bleeding out in the Ruins, where no one would ever find his corpse even as it became dust in the winds of the world.

 

[elementsoul]

Yasmina tightened the butt of the crossbow stock to her left shoulder and lined up the sights with the back of the neck of the boy who turned around. That boy's pompous, self righteous speech was full of problems that Yasmina wouldn't leave unaddressed; if only to wipe that smile clean off his face.

"You should bite your own tongue before you continue to talk without a full force of thought. If you'd stop to think for a second a person who's too injured to even bring up here wouldn't even make it back to the village alive. If you were able to think of that you'd maybe think about what would happen if I shot and killed one of you. The person who returns would have to admit that they were in the Ruins and face the punishment of exile. Then you'd come to the conclusion that you have no idea of who I am or what my name is. So if the elders listened to you about claims of murder, you wouldn't be able to tell them who I am. If manage to convince them to send people out to investigate here, I'd have time to hide the bodies so it would just look like you are a liar who went into the Ruins. The blood on your clothes wouldn't help your case for that matter anyways.

Since I went to how you think or rather lack of it I might as well question you about your choices. If that person is extremely injured why did you leave them behind and come up to the second floor of this building? Are you that easily willing to give into a sense of curiosity than to focus on a live at hand? Have you given so far into it that you'd start making demands of why a person is in the Ruins instead of asking for their help right away? If they're bleeding so bad that that much blood got onto you, did you at least cauterize the wound to stop him from bleeding out?" Yasmina had raised the volume of her voice to match the demanding tone she was trying to portray with her little spiel. She would have gone further but she wasn't expecting any answers. Instead she was just trying to get into the boy's head.

"And for the boy with deaf ears. A job based on duty isn't the same as a job that you are told or assigned to do. The elders may not have told me to come here but I knew that by coming here I would be able to find what I needed to improve upon what we had. My prove of this is the crossbow in my hands. I innovated the design of a steam powered crossbow so that it would work with pressurized air. This improvement will allow our tribe to better fight and defend ourselves from other tribes and hopefully the..." Yasmina was cut short of what she was about to say by two loud bangs.

Yasmina bit her tongue and muttered 'Metal Men' under her breath. After a short pause Yasmina started to speak again. "It looks like the situations changed drastically because based on what I've been told, those sounds are made by the weapons used by Metal Men. So I know that you probably don't like and trust me and I know that I don't really like or trust you, but the presence of the Metal Men should call for all bets to be off.

I'm going to take my fastest route of the Ruins and go back to the village. Most of the route is inside builds which should help us stay out of sight. Since I know you'll want to get your man I'll come with you and lead you out." Yasmina's voice lost all confidence, pride, and arrogance as she spoke. A dry, hoarse, fearful voice quickly over came what she was saying by the third word out of her mouth. Not waiting for an anwser Yasmina lowered her crossbow and started walking towards the pair before her.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Alexis looked at the girl as she made demands and then suddenly changed her tone to be more adaptive of the situation; the explosion of sound had changed that; the tell tale sign of the Metal Men walking amongst them; it was time to move. Alexis nodded to his cousin and the two relaxed for a second, "We need to go now then; you up there, you're with us now, keep up; we need to get out of here now before the Metal Men get here."

The group moved to leave the building, stepping over the crushed remains of rusted steel and shattered glass. Finally with their exit of the building they were both free of its suffocating looks and the tense conversations that had occurred within it; they knew the stakes now and as such were at an uneasy alliance, knowing the other could betray them at any moment. The jungle like forestation had become their enemy, the thick foliage giving Alexis the paranoid feeling that any one of the trees could be hiding someone; or something out to kill them, the Ruins were unforgiving and by the sounds of the explosion; one had found that out the hard way; he hoped that his gut feeling wasn't true, but rarely it lent itself to confusing him.

While this occurred the Metal Men continued to assert themselves over the Ruins; their actions predatory and not at all subtle; they marched through, although few in numbers, with a confidence that would scare all but the hardiest warrior. They had found the fresh blood, known that their target was on the move and most importantly, had learned one of their guarded secrets, one that would take away the immortality that they had surrounded themselves with; the secret that would perhaps cause an actual counterattack to seem less impossible than it had seemed before.

The Scout grimaced as he looked at the hole in his side, covered with strips of old clothing, he could see it beginning to seep through; he realized that this was likely the trip that would kill him. Taking a small draught of water from a canteen given to him he began to speak, "You might have to leave me here; I don't feel as if I'll make it anyways," he was scared of dying it was true, but more scared that his family would suffer the same fate if his information never reached its destination; it was that important to him; important enough that for once it was something that would take precedence over his own life, "Take the information I have, the knife and something else that would offer proof that this isn't the ravings of some children in the Ruins," he removed something from his pocket; it seemed to be one of the Metal Men's smaller weapons, "Give this to them; the Elders."

Alexis pushed the weapon away, "I intend to have you deliver it yourself, I can't just leave one of my own people to rot away alone in the Ruins, I am no monster to do that."

The Scout shook his head, "A noble goal maybe but we're not looking for noble goals, we're looking for a way to stop them; people die in wars all the time, perhaps with this, we can avoid the potential bloodshed that moves this way; after all we're on the brink of destruction here, tribes are being destroyed and we don't even know why the Metal Men are doing it," his voice was getting weaker with every breath, as if trying to get every piece of information out of his mind until his death came to him, "Now please, go, bring my speculations to the Elders."

His arms gave out and he collapsed to the ground despite Alexis and his cousin's best efforts to keep him upright. Finally Alexis knew that it was time to go, "Alright, lets leave him them; a lost cause to the one that we have now; are you all still with me? I know we've lost the man we were trying to save, but that isn't just what we're doing now, apparently we have their secret now, we need to get it to the Elders, we need to do this for our Village."

 

[Shapsters]

"Catch my eye? Does anything catch my eye? Jenna look where we are right now! Everything catches my eye!"

With a sudden wave of realization, it finally struck Charly where exactly she was. So many tales and stories heard about this place growing up, most of which to scare her out of exploring. But of course, the tactics had the complete opposite effect on Charly as it did most of the children in the tribe. The Ruins had become a place of wonder and amazement, the lost city of an unknown civilization, ready for secrets to be unearthed and adventures to behold.

"There's only one thing we can do in this situation!" Charly exclaimed as she grabbed Jenna by the shoulders, "We have to explore! We have to search every inch of this place and find all the hidden secrets and treasures!"

Charly grabbed Jenna by the hand and began running in no particular direction.

 

[CounterAttack]

Charly's response came as a shock to Jenna; the latter rarely rushed headlong into anything, the exceptions being in cases when she knew she was one hundred percent right. As a result she found herself being towed along, desperately trying to get her bearings on where the two of them were in relation to their previous location. Charly's hand was surprisingly strong, though it was to be expected given that she only had one arm.

Jenna occasionally struggled to keep up with her new companion; her skirt occasionally hampered her movement. It was only now that she saw sense in wearing long pants or shorts like the boys did when venturing out into the woodlands or playing games that required physical activity.

The pair was running from one destroyed building to another when noises reached Jenna's ears. Some kind of loud bang... faint, but definitely there. The bang was closely followed by another, identical to the first. She stopped, tugging on Charly's hand to get her attention. "Did you hear that?" she asked quietly, now wary of the land around them. She began to wildly speculate scenarios in her head; there could be natives among the Ruins, defending territory they had claimed. Or a defensive structure with some form of automated mechanism inside, and it had just closed its doors on an unwitting victim. Or maybe a building had collapsed under its own weight, crashing to the ground after standing tall since before Jenna was born.

Whatever the source was, those noises had not sounded good.

 

[Lost In The Void]

The girl turned towards the man who had intruded upon her conversation with Michael. His tone was accusing and harsh and it surprised her to the point that Michael disappeared for a moment to let her speak. She was slightly shy though and highly stressed, she didn't like sudden introductions into her environment. She moved to speak, but the words became tangled in her throat and a strange gargling came out instead.

She coughed to clear her throat and moved to speak again; it seem though that this too would be interrupted as explosive sounds erupted around them; and a sudden pain in her leg drew her attention away from the other person; the wound was round and small, but the pain was unlike she had ever felt before; blood leaking out of the small hole.

The hunter nodded at her and both began to run, the hunter making better pace than the girl. She limped at a brisk pace, the only thing keeping her going was the fear of death and adrenaline that pumped through her veins. She looked back and saw them, the Men of steel and death marching quickly and methodically; their image as terrifying as the weapons they carried. Another crack and more pain and Katie doubled over as blood leaked from her stomach. She looked up one more time and saw the red eyes of the Metal Men before all was taken from her, dead and alone in the Ruins.

 

[RBMidknight]

Caelan knew they had to leave. Metal men were getting closer. And yet...

"Leave him?" Caelan echoed in disbelief. He took a step toward Alexis before continuing in a low voice. "We can't leave him!" Out here in the Ruins? All by himself? When he was dying?....they couldn't! Caelan looked at the messenger and abruptly the dying man's face was replaced by that of Drohan. An veteran warrior and friend of Caelan's father. Though he'd spent most of his life in battle the man had died in his sleep peacefully. Evander had chosen to take his child to the ceremony.

"We burn the bodies." Evander's voice was slow but serious as he explained why the ceremony was important. It was past Caelan's bedtime but he stifled a yawn so that he could listen. Evander's gaze was fixed on the funeral pyre. "We burn them so that their spirits can be released and sent to heaven." he said. "This is why we never leave our wounded behind in battle."

Caelan had nodded solemnly. And then given in to the yawn. The discussion on helping injured comrades had been earlier that day, and came with a saying that was oft repeated by Evander. "If you can't run, you walk. If you can't walk, you crawl. If you can't crawl...you find someone to carry you."

"But what...what if you have to leave them?" Caelan asked the question while looking at the fire many feet away. There was a crowd of people in front and behind, but the pyre was raised and easily visible by all.

Evander paused for a long moment. "If you absolutely must. If there is no other way to survive, then you may leave them. Even the villages we war with know that the fallen should be burned. They must be burned. Or else...." There was another long pause.

"Or?" Caelan turned to look up at his father. Unaccustomed to the darkness he had to squint to see clearly.

There was a strange tone to Evander's final words. "Or..." he said at last. "their spirits are left to wander...forever."

Caelan looked down at the messenger. Really looked. The wounds were horrible. Most of the messenger's clothing was dark with blood. That same blood now coated both Caelan and Alexis' shirts. They couldn't save him, they didn't have the means to.

"We shouldn't leave him..." Caelan said again. But his voice lacked the conviction it had to begin with. Caelan shot Alexis a confused look and drew his cloak around his arms. The red stains became covered by soft green cloth.

 

[ultrachicken]

Michael sprinted like he never had before, wind clobbering his ears as his feet pushed against the ground in a blur of swift motions. He did not even look back when the crackling thunder found its target and his companion's footsteps stopped abruptly, followed by a crumpling noise. I would rather not mourn the dead if it means joining them. His experienced ears picked up on the frightened cries and pitter patter of the forest's animals fleeing the scene. Smart critters.

A second bang sent a wave of anxiety coursing through the hunter's veins, quickening his pace even further. He almost slammed into a decayed wall as he tried to stay on course. Crumbled stone structures whizzed by him. Michael pressed his hands against a fallen pillar of grey rock, overgrown with ivy. The leaves were squished between his hands and the stone as he lifted his body off the ground, swinging his legs over, then his torso, then his head, all without missing a beat. As soon as his eyes were over, he spotted two girls running around foolhardily across the ruins, one stopped and gazing, alarmed, in the direction of the explosions.

Michael's reflexes took charge, his lower abdomen and hamstrings straining to bring his legs to a stop, but they didn't kick in in time. He slammed into the blond girl, his shoulder shaking and searing with the sudden blunt trauma, and he stumbled before stabilizing himself against a wall. He spun around to see that the girl had retained her footing.

The impulse to run hit him again, the fight or flight chemicals rushed into his belly, but he suppressed it to warn these two; a strange decision for him, as what could be considered the act of a good samaritan was usually not usually the kind of act he went through with. However, this was not an entirely selfless decision. If the hunter were to face a crippling accident, say, a broken or sprained ankle, he would have aid. If the others were merely slowing him down, he could ditch them at a later point to ensure his survival. Whatever it takes. He took a moment to catch his breath, gasping desperately to fill his arid lungs.

"You two! We have to run!" he whispered harshly, suppressing the urge to shout so that his assailants would not find him, "There are murderers in the ruins!"