Project: Neverbound (A Double Life AU fanfic)

17 - The Spiral

Poem reading created and provided by roweterpsichore
https://youtu.be/Pes43mYYRXg

When the day began, the Spiral was still young
Far more than many fell, and it still only just begun
The sky of red
Fellow people dead
And they plucked out his courage and cut out his tongue

The Moon had helped him survive, though his mind far too late
She was to dark the dim light, to paper the loose tape
Held by her hands
To never understand
She believed him far better off in the hands of fate

His heart pounded in his chest, his breaths heavy, fast, and uneven. He was covered in blood, and only a little bit of it was his. Tears broke through the crimson on his cheeks, smudging it and putting more into the grass below.

That morning, everything was fine. Martyn waved goodbye to his mother as the bus picked him up for school, talked about his weekend with none other than his best friend Pearl, and had to spend the morning in detention for whatever it was he did yesterday. You'd think he'd learn not to write his name on the desk with a sharpie if he didn't want to be caught, but he was only in elementary school after all. He could've learned when he got older and smarter anyway.

He could've.

But the speakers in the detention room as well as the entire school came to life early that day, surprising everyone in the building. And slowly but surely, the sky outside began to turn red.

"Hello, current residents of Evo Elementary," the announcement said. "We won't bore you with a mass of incomprehensible poems or promises of a future, especially not now that your future is... well, empty for most of you. We won't bore you with the reason why either. Just know we've been looking for a few specific children, and the rest of you are merely collateral.

"This is your Demise Day."

As much as that person, whom Martyn assumed to be a Watcher, tried to make it seem like they weren't targeting kids like him, there sure were a lot of dead bodies out in the halls as he made a mad dash to the exit doors. Behind him, a loud growl thundered across the building, shaking the structure as if there really was lightning striking inside. Instead, a tall figure with clawed wings for arms, talons for legs, and an eye on the inside of it's beak-like maw half crawled and half walked through the red painted halls.

It caught less than a glimpse of Martyn through the eyes on one of it's 4 hands, and it was heading straight for him.

He thought once he made it out the doors, he'd be safe. He wasn't sure where he got the idea, but it was dead wrong. Even when he did burst out of the school like it was the day before summer break, the true-formed Watcher burst through the closing metal, breaking it on impact and instantly pinning Martyn to the ground. It really didn't need 3 of it's wing arms to keep him down, he was only a kid after all, but it used 3 of them anyway, digging its claws into Martyn's arms. His cheek brushed against the blades of grass, scraping his skin from the initial skid of the tackle. It's 4th arm wrapped around his neck, stopping the airflow where it was, and the blonde closed his eyes tightly, already feeling lightheaded and not wanting the horrifically jagged face to be in his last waking moments.

And then a bloody screech. That was where he was now. Catching his breath as the blood of the Watcher spewed across the front of his body and the grass around him, the eye in its jaw having been directly hit by a sharp stake of wood that looked like it belonged to the rickety old swing-set they had on the playground. A new winged figure held the stake in place as the Watcher thrashed around, their own wings matching the creature's but not quite in the same inhuman way. The Watcher finally shook the figure off, but the damage was already done, and it collapsed in a heap at Martyn's feet, its jaw eye continuing to bleed profusely despite its already passing.