Paralyzed.
That was me in the midst of the most important battle yet, in the struggles between good and evil, light and dark, and everything in between. Somewhere along the way in time, the lines between the two sides blurred, creating a grey void in the midst of the eternal struggle. A grey void that, when unleashed, could cause massive mayhem or colossal restoration. Finding one of the void is arduous, nearly impossible. They are concealed within the kosmos, created to blend in with normal life. Yet, even the kosmos is ever expanding and ever changing.
Unlike most, my paralysis came from overthinking the situation, not stemmed from fear. I knew how important it was to keep moving, I couldn't force myself to move a muscle. Objects blurred past me, never once hitting me somehow. As the battle raged on around me, I noticed no one was falling on either side. It didn't make sense to me. Not a single wound seemed to form on anyone getting hit either.
My thoughts veered to the dark haired boy, casually walking in front of me without a care of the battle raging around us. He was about the same height as me with brown eyes. Suddenly, I instinctively started walking towards him, despite my brain screaming no, as if it were a bad idea.
He ran his fingers through his short, wavy hair to push it to the side, though it persistently stayed put. Then the young man began to walk faster as my feet tried desperately to keep up with him. I could hear voices shouting my name, telling me to come back over to them, but their calls went over my head as I stayed on his trail.
I furrowed my eyes when the dark haired young man disappeared from sight, my trance broken. I glanced around, spinning in a circle to take in my surroundings. I could clearly hear the battle raging not far off in the disatance, but the boy was gone. Just gone. He appeared to have vanished into thin air.
Just as I turned to head back to the fight, a hand covered my mouth and an arm wrapped themselves around my arms and gut, forcing me quiet and into standing still. I tried to scream through the hand, my reaction frantic, but the sound was muffled by the hand.
"I would stop struggling if I were you," a deep voice said, his tone level with what seemed to be an angry mood. Instinctively, I went silent, knowing the screams wouldn't help anyway. Not with the battle still going on. It was futile to try to fight the man behind me at the moment it seemed; he felt taller than myself and was definitely stronger than me. I noted his chest by my head as I braced myself for what he was going to do. He wasn't going to kill me, he could have done that already instead of getting my attention focused on him.
"Very good, now, we are going to start walking. You can follow my lead or we can do this the harder way, which will only hurt you more than myself," he continued, giving me no real option other than to follow. I nodded slightly and bit back another scream as he pushed me in a direction away from the fight.
The realization hit me as I fell to the ground: I was being kidnapped. But why? And by whom? I didn't have long enough to think further on it as he grabbed the collar of my top and pulled me back to my feet roughly. Then I felt something sharp against my back. A knife. Swiftly, I started actually walking this time, trying my best not to fall again.
Pretty soon, the sun was sinking over the horizon and, after being on my feet all day, I was tired and very uncertain of my surroundings. Luckily, the man slowed down, but he forced me to sit on the damp ground while he wandered slightly ahead. I watched his retreating form for a heartbeat, then turned solely to my racing thoughts. I debated running off, but I knew I would be easily captured again before getting far enough; I was far too tired to move quick enough.
The man was only gone a minute or so, before returning with some rope and a blindfold. Not sure where he got them, but it seemed like he was planning this beforehand to have it ready and waiting.
"Easy or hard way," he stated simply. Quickly, he had me bound and blindfolded without any resistance. "Now walk."
Recommencing walking, the hand on my shoulder guilding the way, I start to drift oncemore into my lonely thoughts after finally getting a glimpse of my captor just minutes ago. He was taller than me, as I had imagined. Stormy grey eyes, ones that seemed to bore into my soul when he looked at me. His brunette hair reached his eyes. In fact, if the hair hadn't been brushed to the side, it would have definitely been in his eyes. To think my dad had short hair, reaching just to his shoulder, something I knew I wouldn't argue over again when I saw him next. If I saw him again at all. All in all, he was definitely not the boy that I was originally following earlier. But who exactly were either of them?
Stiffling a yawn, I wondered how late it was. I was to the point of exhaustion by now and, as the frore winds from the North picked up, I was starting to feel a little frosty. Autumn, this year, seemed short as the days got colder a month earlier than normal.
By coincidence or by luck, we were slowing down again. I was shivering pretty badly, despite the steady pace had been keeping, and I was mostly focused on staying warm at this point. I was in a short sleeve and chainmail, not anything that would keep my body heat. Then again, I thought taciturnly, while he definitely felt me shaking, he could have mistaken it for fear, or just not cared at all. Biting my tongue, hoping it would distract me from the cold, I walked quietly, taking in the consistent silence in short, easy strides. I did not wish to hear another word from him anyway.
"Step," the man stated. Heeding the warning and hesitating slightly, I tentatively reach out with my foot to secure it on the step. "Step," he repeated, and so I repeated what I did to move up again, hearing a slight creak when I landed on the step. He did not say another word, so I assumed I was to move forward again. Oh boy, how wrong I was. There was another step in front of me, one I had not been warned of yet. My right foot caught the edge of it, sending me tumbling to the floor of the wooden patio, my right foot twisting out of place. I felt my face slam into the wood and was immediately knocked unconscious, the pain overwhelming and the exhaustion taking over my body and claiming it as its own for some time.
