The Arcadian Eclipse

Episode 2

I took a deep breath and shoved the boy to the side. My feet became lead, but I needed to step closer to the knife, otherwise, he might hurt the boy in the fight. I knew that he was angry and that he had not yet had water. It was obvious to me in his eyes. I could feel his rage, his disease had not yet been quenched.

I had only stepped two feet closer when he released his rage with a dry scream.

He ran. Language had become cries of fury to him. A violent animal, he didn't communicate anything but his desire to drink from the lake. I didn't know what I would do with him being armed with a knife. I needed a plan and was racking my brain when he stopped six feet ahead of me.

Breathing heavily, he said, "The boy."

"What?"

"The boy, give him to me."

"No," I said indignantly, as if I were in control, "What could you want from him?"

"One of you has to die for what you did. The lady ran out of water before I came to, no other hydration stand for miles. There's less risk of injury to us both if you give him to me. And he has more water in him anyway."

Now I understood what he wanted as I heard the boy's muffled cries. Everyone knew how long water took to absorb until you needed more again. Half was gone from the stomach in ten to fifteen minutes. That much time had already passed. The other half could take much longer and he had drunk a little more than half a gallon. I looked at his knife. I knew what he would do to the boy.

I didn't point at the boy, I wanted him to look at me. But his eyes migrated to the boy without the aid of my finger.

"You're not going to lay a hand on that boy. You're a teenager, you know I can kill you."

"I'm seventeen." I sounded calm through the beats of my heart.

My blood was pumping in my ears. I could feel the sharp beat in the pads of my fingers. My body was ordering me to run, but I ignored the tightness of my skin.

The man paused for two beats, and then rushed me. Inside those two beats, I took the opportunity to plan. My mind became clear and my time slowed, elongating those beats – creating more time to plan.

He sprang at me. I let him rush me and then jumped aside, pushing him away from the boy, to the opposite side of the alley. While he was off-kilter, I forcefully turned him and put him in a chokehold with my right arm. A sharp pain seared into my right thigh as he grazed me with his knife thrashing about. He was beginning to master his way through the chokehold, and the knife would soon be lethal to me. I shoved my left-hand thumb into his right eye. Hard. It was so hard that I could feel the side of his socket and he cried out. He dropped his knife.

His garbled pleas sounded like a dog whimpering. I pitied him, but then I looked over to the boy on the other side of the alley. He was shaking with fear. If I let this man live, he would come back again to hurt the boy or my sister. He had wanted to cut the boy's stomach open. So, compassion dried my heart.

I squeezed him tighter, trying to decapitate him with my arm. He stopped pleading, he stopped moving. He finally went limp. I held him, occasionally tensing my arm more, pulsating on his neck, until long after he was dead. I put all my anger on him, into his dead body.