Horns ✖

Nightbreakers

Thistlehorn...

I felt the name slowly fade into the shadows the second I returned to my body. Just as soon as it came the dream left, and I was back into the darkness once more. I felt it take off in fact, darting into the unknown did that nightmare slither, allowing me to suffer in its absence, and eventually forget.

I was growing used to that sensation.

Here I laid quiet and motionless for a while, much to my disapproval, and all the while I reeled in the odd tastes and smells circulating my flesh. Upon the many were dirt, rock, flesh, and blood.

My blood.

The murky essense pooled around me, just as it had when I woke the first night. I still remembered the day in the grasslands, alone and forgotten, broken and cursed, angry and sad. Born into violence, without a choice to begin with. It was terrible to think that through all these deaths, battles, and everything in between I had yet to understand everything. All I've discovered was that I was held accountable for something, and the result of such a thing was death, in the cruelest of manners. Truth be told I had experienced death before.

This was no exception.

While striving to once more inhale the bloody stench a sharp pain suddenly erupted from my underbelly, sending jolts of molten fire racing through my veins. Confused, I tried the inhale again, only to wheeze out a horribly painful warble that accompanied the searing pain below. My claws sank into the flesh of earth as I steadied myself, struggling to breathe normally, but no matter what I tried the pain only grew, and grew.

Until it was too unbearable.

There was a stake being hammered into my lower spine too, the strikes radiating pain in a way that shattered my brain - or at least that's what it felt like. I lied so still, attempting to breathe shallow wisps of air to avoid the pain. But I knew, in my heart, that I wasn't okay. I felt broken, I felt sick and very lost. Now I was afraid to breathe, to stand, or even cry.

I was afraid to do anything.

All I could do was question my soul of answers I had no knowledge of - visions and dreams more far fetched than the strange storyline I've long traveled. I questioned my fate, my destiny, or why I had survived so much when so many haven't. Why was I spared? Why keep me here and not grant the others their undying wish? What did the world want from me?

Of course I wasn't expecting an answer, all I could hear was utter silence, and blandly accepted it. As the agony worsened, I shifted my exhales and opened both eyes a bit wider, hoping to gaze at how bad the damage was in the dark. And as I did, I began to lumbar back into old memories, memories that I considered too timely and ironic in this time of need.

"You've barely moved since yesterday, so I'm urging you now to stand."

"Can't I rest?"

"You already have," came Wrecker's voice again, nudging me again.

"I'm still tired."

The club-tail snorted with retortment, poking me by the thorns rustling upon his forehead and growled lowly, "That doesn't matter three-horn! Predator or prey, insect or long-neck, when the sun comes up, you start moving."

"So you say...But I don't think I can..." I sighed, gazing into his visage, "I'm scared to go on...my friend."

Wrecker blinked without a word, yet leaned in close, licking the tip of my snout. I felt his rough tongue press against me and purred in reply, looking back up into his misty eyes with a broken whimper.