Awakening

Chapter 4: Rescue

Chapter 4: Rescue

Tomomi stood there horrified and paralyzed as the Shade Crawler slowly made its way closer to her. The death gaze had worn off, but the crippling fear still remained. Canta kept telling her to run, but to no avail.

“Master Tomomi, if you do not move now, you will be killed.” Canta yelled out bluntly. “We have run away as far as possible!”

Tomomi knew she had to run, as it was her best way of avoiding any type of confrontation. But something in her body would not allow her to move. “I… I can’t! I’m too… too scared to do anything!”

Canta had enough excuses. “Master… please… I don’t usually get angry, but you are pushing my limits here.” The Shade Crawler was roughly a few meters away from them, being able to reach Tomomi within seconds. “If you don’t act now, Eric’s efforts will all be gone. I thought you told him that you were going to seek his revenge too, did you not?”

She was then reminded at what had been said at the castle. She would take revenge on the kingdom for taking her champion. Closing her eyes, she mustered all of her strength. Turning around, she charged forward, back from where they came from.

Not knowing where she was going, everything looked the same and in no time she was lost, but she didn’t care. As long as Canta was with her and she was away from the Shade Crawler there was nothing to lose. Still being caught in fear, she quickly glanced behind her to see if it was close, but nothing seemed to be in sight, which was a sigh of relief for her.

Unfortunately for her, so many things were happening at once that she tripped over the many branches on the ground and hit herself on a tree trunk. The impact was so great that it knocked her back a couple of meters and left her dizzy. Falling down on her bottom, she looked in front of her and noticed that everything was blurry. Her head was spinning and felt nauseous. She also felt panicked because she felt a warm sensation on her forehead. Touching it, she saw that it was blood that was caused by the impact.

She couldn’t be sitting on the ground, she had to keep moving! There was no way that she would fight something as dangerous as a Shade Crawler… she needed someone’s help. John would’ve been a reasonable person to seek, but he’s too far… but it is better than Eric who was out of reach. All of her efforts trying to stand up were in vain as she was too dizzy and all her attempts ending up falling back down.

Dammit… she thought to herself. What were the chances of running into a Shade Crawler at this time? She managed to make a fist and hit the ground.

“I hate to interrupt your thoughts Master, but… I’m afraid we didn’t get far.” Tomomi didn’t understand what Canta was saying. “The Shade Crawler… has caught up.”

Tomomi was shocked. All that running she did was for nothing then! Maybe she could’ve stood on her two feet and fought the damned thing instead of running away! That’s what her ancestors would’ve done… but how could she fight something wearing steel with her bare hands?

Thankfully, her ears weren’t damaged from the impact of the tree because her thoughts were once again interrupted with the clinks of armour. The sounds of the armour weren’t consistent, as it seemed like the Shade Crawler was sluggishly walking or limping towards her.

Hearing that it was coming closer, Tomomi mustered all of her strength once more to make a run for it, but it was hopeless; she was frozen once more. The Shade Crawler’s clinks of the armour were progressively getting louder and once again she was locked down by the death stare once again.

Noticing a pattern within the Shade Crawler, Canta saw that Tomomi was looking directly at the Shade Crawler for the whole time even when at the first encounter moments earlier. The Shade Crawler was emitting some type of hypnotism… which seemed like it was the main cause that paralyzed Tomomi with fear.