Stolen Truth

14

Waking up to a sword being shoved in my face is not my ideal start to... well anything really. It wasn't one of our swords, I guess I half expected it to be Shark, I recognised the style though, the blanks had found us, and we were barely a day in.

"This one's awake!" The person that was currently holding the sword announced to the others, jabbing it closer to my face. I observed the man from the uncomfortable position I was in, he was slightly overweight, like many of the generals were compared to the rest of us that starved in the training camps. He smelled of death and I struggled not to gag for fear that he might stab me.

I was half sat up, half lying down and my arms were beginning to give way as I tried to hold myself up. I was careful not to move any closer or further back as the tip of the sword was touching my face, dangerously close to my eye. I had been a blank long enough to know that if I moved or appeared threatening, they wouldn't hesitate to kill.

"Start waking up the others," Someone ordered, "We'll take the boys back to the city and the girls can go straight to the auction."

I could only watch from the corner of my eye as Dove and the others were kicked awake, and had swords shoved in their faces.

"Get up!" The blank stood in front of me demanded.

I shook my head and glared at him, wincing in pain as the sword scraped across my face. I felt warm blood drip down my face, but I didn't mind. I tried to focus on his sword, heating up the metal until it burnt his hand and the sword dropped to the ground, mere inches away from cutting my stomach. They had already taken most of our stuff, including our swords, so I grabbed his sword whilst he was distracted, and I got up, prepared to fight.

At this point the other blanks had noticed and were coming over to stop me, giving the others a chance to escape. Of course, they all have values, so they began fighting back as well.

Soon we were beating the blanks, although it wasn't by a lot. Bear had been stabbed in the leg and the others were barely holding their ground. Fox had stolen most of our stuff back and Spider was attempting to help Bear, Shark had mysteriously disappeared but no one else had noticed.

Finally, the remaining blanks retreated, and we were able to get away.

"Do you think they'll let me keep the sword?" Bear joked weakly as Spider operated on him.

"I don't know," Viper said through tears, "They might want it back."

"Well then I'm afraid they can't have it, I'm rather attached to it now."

"Stop laughing," Spider warned, "You're making it difficult for me unstab you."

"Unstab?" Bear questioned, laughing harder at this.

"Yes, and you had better be careful what you say to me because I can always restab you if I want to."

"You wouldn't?" Bear gasped jokingly.

"I would," Spider said, a small smile making its way onto her lips. "Now Rat, I need you and Viper to apply pressure around the stab wound when I say, I'm also going to need your shirt."

I quickly took off my shirt and handed it to Spider as requested, watching curiously as she wrapped it tightly around Bear's upper thigh, just above where he had been stabbed. Spider nodded at us, and Viper and began applying pressure as she had asked.

"I'm going to pull it out on three," Spider said, and Bear nodded in response, his eyes squeezed shut.

"One..." Spider started, readying her hands around the hilt of the sword.