Part One
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Voices.
Castian heard them, soft and distant.
"What do we do with him? He keeps returning here," a woman said.
"I do not know," the second voice was that of an old man. He coughed. "We could show the other..."
"No," she snapped, voice whip quick with the denial. "No," she said again, calmer now. "We can't do that, he's one of his kind, he'll want to protect him, no matter what."
"Perhaps." The old man sighed. "And he doesn't need another strain at the moment."
"What about the other, the underworldling?"
Something creaked softly, and the man was silent a moment. "He didn't fight you when you captured them."
"There were five of us, and only one of it, of course it didn't."
"Most would have."
"Well, perhaps that one isn't most, but I hardly see why that matters, its one of Hel's creatures."
"Just because she made the first, doesn't mean she owns his loyalty," the man said patently.
"We have to kill it. It is our duty."
He sighed. "Perhaps. We should hear what he will say when he wakes, though."
"Why?! So it can get its claws in us and trick us? You are a foolish old man."
"And you are an ignorant youngling, let me deal with this."
She hissed.
Silence followed, and Castain wondered if he'd fallen asleep again. Something crackled softly, a great distance away. The old man muttered something to himself, voice coming closer.
"She is likely right," he murmured, very close now, but still hard to make out. "But I'll be damned if I don't learn how and why little human runts keep showing up here." Something warm pressed to Castian's lips. He struggled, trying to raise his hand to push it away, but couldn't move. A low groan slipped out of him.
"Sleep," the man said. Something thick and sweet trickled into his mouth, coating his tongue before his body reflexively swallowed.
"Sleep."
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They were arguing again, but this time the distance was too great and he couldn't make anything out but tones.
The girl was angry, the elderly man cool and in control of his voice. Another man spoke in the background, nearly as agitated as the girl.
The old man raised his voice at them, and they stopped speaking abruptly. He continued to speak in a loud, if even tone. Scolding them? It was hard to tell. Then everything went quiet again.
Castian floated in a bleary sea, lost among the waves. Which way was back to his body? Reality? He didn't even know where he was, and even in the twist and turn and soft edged world, the worry of that ate at him.
Where had he been?
He couldn't find his way to those memories. Any of his memories, he realized with a shock. He fumbled for them, and they moved farther back. He knew things, but in a hazy way. He knew who he was. Where he lived. But if he focused on it, it slid away. Everything was a glossy world of thing he knew, but had no real knowledge of.
He was Castian, he lived in a Field where there wasn't time, he worked for a man he no longer trusted. He killed people. He had no friends, no family, and no idea where he was.
But he knew it wasn't home.
Distantly he was aware of something trickling past his cracked lips. It was sweet. His stomach squeezed inward, instinctively loathing it. Had they given it to him before? Castian couldn't remember.
He struggled to make his arms move. Anything move.
"S... stop." The word was thick. He choked on the liquid filling his mouth, stomach writhing inside him. "Stop..."
Someone touch his forehead with fingertips. "Mm..." They pulled his eyelid up and he got a brief flash of a dark skinned man with a strangely shaped face. Not skin, fur. He's one of them... The thought slid away. "Stop fighting it, boy. You need the rest."
More of the liquid filled his mouth. He coughed, trying not to swallow it. "No... Stop..."
The man did it again, this time pressing his mouth shut to trap the too sweet liquid inside. Castian's heart pounded wildly in his chest, making his entire body shake. He fought not to swallow. To breath through his nose instead. His hands curled slowly against a blanket covering him. The man squeezed his nose.
He couldn't breathe. A sob shook him.
"Hush, boy. Swallow."
No. He tried to spit it out, but the man was stronger than him, and his hand was pressed to Castian's mouth firmly. No, no no. He choked. Gagged. Tried to roll away from the man and the thing that would push him back beneath the waves where he would drown.
The man ran his hand against Castian's throat. Once. Twice. He felt himself swallow against his will and would have screamed if the old man's hand wasn't still there.
Instead, his body started shaking harder, fingers tightening on he blanket. Fight. Every part of him was thrashing and struggling inside to fight. Draw blood from whoever was doing this to him. Kill them, if he could.
The shaking subsided, and he felt himself sliding back into the waiting void.
Not again. They were going to kill him. He probably wouldn't even know when he was dead. He'd just stop feeling his tenuous hold on his body. Stop fighting, breathing. He'd never find...
The thought blurred away. He felt angry tears sliding from his closed eyes. Distantly he felt the old man pull back from him.
"I hate you..." The words caught somewhere in his throat, coming out intelligible. "I hate... you.." More tears. He'd never get to fix what had been done to... Who? And who had done it? Nothing.
Nothing.
He scrambled to find something. A memory, anything to cling to, something that would hold him afloat as the sea opened up around him. Memories and moments from his past scattered around him like leaves blown away in a mighty wind. They washed out into the sea, leaving him, and with every one that vanished, he felt himself sinking. Castian tried to scream. Tried to remember how to scream. But like everything else, it was gone. How did he breathe? Did he breathe?
Another memory floated past him, small and weak. He lunged at it, grabbing on.
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Sorry I forgot to do this at a decent time, guys. I actually forgot it was Friday somehow, I might be just a tad out of it this week.
Just a tad.
Anywaaaay, I think it might be flashback timeeee, Castian will love this!
YOU ARE READING
An Assassin In Time
Science Fiction(ON HOLD) If time couldn't hold you, what would you do? Castian was born inside a Field, outside of time. He has no timeline. He belongs nowhere, and anywhere. The Field he was in was destroyed when he was young, and he and four other children...
