Race to the end

RaceTTEnd 8

I don’t remember much after they caught up to us.

There was a smash and Tamu fell to the floor. Then I remember the sharpness in my head and the wet that ran down my neck. The grey sand came closer and closer. I rested on it, shutting my eyes.

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I lifted my head. I saw people’s feet moving around. One stopped beside me, causing me to freeze. I heard a small yell to a person over the other side of me. In seconds I was being carried away from my spot. I felt the bump of stairs and my body jerked with each footfall. I tried to remain as limp as the rag doll, I used to play with, but the movement of my carriers made it impossible. I settled to remaining stiff. This worked better. I felt them stop, lowering me to the ground. I say lower though it felt more like they had just let go of me.

I lay still on the ground. I noticed that it was not grey sand anymore. It was a matted woven carpet, probably made of straw. The fibres scratched my arms.

“Lift her up” I heard a commanding voice say. I tried to ignore the familiarity of the tone. I felt two arms encircle mine and lift me roughly off the ground. I dropped my head to my chest, willing to keep my eyes away from the figure in front of me. A grubby hand pulled at my hair forcing my head to look upwards. I pulled down, but tears formed in my eyes. I gritted my teeth and looked upwards, locking my eyes with Embri’s.

She smiled down at me, her eyes glinting in the light. I stared at her.

“Bring her forward” I was scraped along the ground to be thrown down by her feet. The arms left and I rubbed my own. My arms and legs were bleeding lightly from the carpet. I looked up to see Embri grinning down at me. She reminded me of one of the new dogs we had found. It was called a Hyena. They were vicious and had a howl that resembled human laughter. Their grins would send shivers up your spine. They were evil creatures.

Embri kicked me in the stomach making me smack down into the ground. I remained there. I could feel the imprint of her foot on my chest. I clutched myself, new tears forming. She came closer to me standing majestically over me. She pushed my face with her foot so I would face her. She smiled down at me. A dark look crept into her eyes and she snarled. Her foot smashed down into my face. I gasped and sat up clutching my face. I gently touched my nose, it wasn’t broken but it was bleeding.

Above me I heard laughter, and then what seemed to be an echo. I removed my hands and looked upwards. I was at the bottom of the crater. I turned my stiff neck to the side and could make out the man with the leaves on his head. Standing next to him was the teenager.

“…She has chose me, the son of your Machi as her consort” The echo of what he had said played over in my mind. Consort. That was the name given to the human lover of a god. Embri was not a god. I frowned now, turning to face her. Blood still pooled out of my nose.

“You’ve lied to them” I stated. Embri’s eyes widened but her smile didn’t falter. She marched forward to me and yanked my hair pulling my head backwards. I was forced to glare up at the people sitting around the crater.

“This is my great enemy” Embri announced. There were mutters all around the room and some people threw things down at me. An apple core. A stone. None hit me. Embri waited till they had calmed, before carrying on. “She is, like me, a god” They all muttered again, this time looking shocked and worried. I tried to pull out of Embri’s grasp but she yanked me back harder. “The only way to rid this world of the evil around us…” People sat forward on her seats, their expressions eager and waiting. “…Is to throw her into the volcano!”

Silence.

Then came loud shouts and whoops. People began to throw more things down, some actually hitting me this time. I winced as a stone struck my nose. The people with drums banged them loudly, so excited that there was no rhythm. People around the crater banged on their seat with large stones and loud out-of-tune singing echoed around the crater.

Embri pulled me to look at her and smirked at me. I sighed. Clearly this was not the reaction she wanted and so she pulled back her arm and brought it down into my face. I blacked out.

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When I came to, I was sat against a wall. It felt like stone. I tried to move my arms but soon found that they were bound above my head. I struggled, trying to get my hands out of the shackles but they were too tight. I only managed to cut myself on them.

I heard shuffling to my left and turned to see Tamu sat next to me, in the same position hands bound. He was still unconscious but he was starting to wake.

I sat in silence trying to think of what to do. Embri. What has she done? I shook my head angrily. She just wanted power. She was going to use these people to try and take over, well, everything. I sat up straighter against the wall. The stones felt cold against my back. Tamu stirred and then his eyes flickered open.

“Don’t struggle” His eyes found me and he nodded. Though he didn’t really understand. He tried to move but failed. He looked over at me again, his eyes adjusting to the gloom and saw that I was bound. His eyes widened but he stopped struggling.

I sighed and waited. For what, well I didn’t know. I hoped that there would be a big heroic rescue like in some of the books we had found. Where Ribo would swoop down and save us. The sad part was, I never finished that story.

I don’t know how it ends.

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A group of these people were to take us to the volcano. The teenager and Embri would go to. The teenager I heard was called Toto. I chuckled slightly when I heard that as it reminded me of a dog in a book a read part of. That earned me another whack in the face.

We would set out tomorrow and hopefully reach the volcano in three days. Tamu kept willing me with his eyes to think up a plan. Truthfully I didn’t know what to do. All plans in my head failed. The only hope I had was with Ribo and the others. Hopefully our trackers still work or at least were still in the crater. Then maybe they could find us.

We were brought food, nothing special. And every now and then Toto would come in and beat us for a bit. It started to lose its effect and I felt nothing. This didn’t stop him. He would cry he was doing Embrini’s work. This I snickered at. The days were long and the nights were longer. I hurt all over and Tamu slipped in and out of consciousness. I felt so bad for him. All that kept me going was the thought that I had to help him at least escape.

He will get out of here.