To Imagine...

Imagine Three: Skylar

Nothing happened. That was the first thing he realized as the noise echoed painfully in his ears, yet no other pain graced his body. He felt his blood rage fading, but the threat of the thing the man held still held his attention. If he moved, would the man shoot? If he stayed down, would the man shoot? How would he react to what he just saw? Would he be enraged? Scared? Scared was dangerous. Would he be shocked? Shocked was his best chance.

Demyier looked up, glowing red eyes immediately trained on the man. He was fucking fat. Leaping to the side, to his feet, he only dropped immediately to the ground the moment his foot touched the ground. Another shot clicked, but very anticlimactically. With a cry of fear and desperation, the man shot out again and again, his aim impaired and his body shaking. But only a clicking noise ticked from inside the object. True fear drained onto the man's face and he stared at the thing in disbelief, a glisten of realization growing in his eyes.

Calmly, he now walked towards the fat man. The man looked up slowly and fear dawned in his eyes. He collapsed onto his ass and stared up at the boy, broken whimpering falling from his lips.

"You're a demon."

A smile. "Impossible to interpret." Sarcasm.

The boy did not hesitate. He kicked the man once in the face, knocking him hard onto his back, and then he stomped, three times, smashing it into the strange, hard ground. There was blood, and there was no movement.

The boy looked up and trotted away without another glance, moving smoothly across the strange, flat ground. The night ran with him as he ran across the painted roads. Scarce were the stars in the sky; a frightening discovery when the boy looked up and realized. He avoided well-lit roads, having nearly been run down by a large, stinking, weird things on black and silver wheels, lights more blinding than what the two men had held pointed at him. Everything about this place the boy could only describe as strange to him, which he found unsettling. Relentless, he moved on. Something familiar must exist here. The grass was short and pathetic, the trees were small and scarce. And there was so much of everything else that he did not understand.

As he continued to sprint along the roads, casting around his gaze, he followed a road that went straight for as far as he could see, and found a few dozen trees clumped together that could hardly provide shelter for any living thing larger than a cat. Unimpressed, he moved on, though now encouraged, and found himself approaching ornamented, solid houses, where no longer were the buildings of before. The houses were complex, and, yes, strange, but noticeable for what they were.

Cautiously, Demyier slowed to a brisk walk, taking in what he saw all around him. Houses, houses, more houses, lined up one next to another along the roads, all the way, way, way down, in each and every direction, lined up with the wheeled vehicles in front, all here... It was like a stables even, where humans were kept and bred like rabbits. So many hundreds of humans could have inhabited these spaces. Who controlled all this? What kind of humans lived in these houses? Why were they being kept here?

Walking into the grass alongside the road where trees were scattered about, he lifted his arm to brush away a branch, only to twitch and feel no response. Blood had long since soaked his arms and the right side of his body, and suddenly he felt a fatigue tearing down at his body like an anvil. His eyes dimmed, but suddenly boiled at the realization of his bondage. He tore at his arms, pulling at them though they were barely existent beyond the numbness. The metal biting into his wrists even without movement now grated against them with enough bite to draw more blood. Frantic, the boy struggled until the world bent before him, and he found his true exhaustion. He took a pathetic breath and held it, his arms losing tension slowly, and forced himself to trudge around to the back of the house before him.

He studied a door as he stood in front of it, arms stuck behind his back, and felt a sudden vertigo. Taking in another breath, he fell against the door against his will. It made a small thump and he slid, the door frame the only thing keeping him upright. His head turned, burying his face in the door and he cursed. He could not die in this place. Not by the hands of a...

He choked.

A mere human.

Having closed his eyes, they snapped open, dimly glowing with a weak red color. Not at all. His resolve was set. He lifted himself away from the door with his shoulder and pressed his back against it, feeling it suddenly move behind him.

The door slid open. Entranced, he pushed it farther open and gave no effort to close it.

He stood, the faint light of his eyes guiding him through the dark of the house. The floor was a strange material, as were the walls, but as he walked through the house he was relieved to find something he recognized: a couch. His eyes fading again to black, he fell and immediately was gone, his consciousness gone from existence in a heartbeat.