Skuggi woke to the sway of a wooden cart. His wrists were bound in front of him with a rough rope that scraped the skin each time the wheels hit a stone. The air inside the cramped wagon carried sweat, dirt, and dried blood. He counted at least ten to 15 bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, guiding himself by the breathing of the people surrounding him. His eyes were blindfolded yet he smelled that none of them were like the alchemists. Their clothes were torn. Their faces held cuts that hadn’t been cleaned. Their breaths came shallow. It seems they were prisoners of some sort of experimentation just like him.

  He hadn’t known anyone else had been kept alive in the dungeon. He had only heard masked alchemists moving through the halls. For a long time he thought the masks were their real faces. Only after the conference room encounter did he understand they were just continuing something in a hurry. He remembered a few faces of those who didn't abide by the rules. Enough to track them down and hunt them slowly, so he would not scare the rest of them. But he needed to learn enough of his surroundings to be powerful enough to hunt.

  The scents of those captured alongside him clung to him, almost suffocating as it reminded him what he went through. It made him remember the clothes they wore. The herbs they used. The metal polish on their tools. Each smell lodged itself deep in his nose. He wouldn’t forget any of them. If any of those scents crossed his path again, he would know.

  The wagon jolted. A woman beside him winced. Blood stained her sleeve, it seemed she had been assaulted because she resisted against the group of soldiers. Skuggi saw this wasn't a group made to be kept safe, he already had his doubts. He saw the opportunity to lean towards her slightly. When he got to touch her wounded arm with his, something happened. He felt himself receiving pain out of nowhere, something unnatural to himself as he had healed his wounds. This came from somewhere else. He heard her breathing calm down… as if it gave her some kind of relief. He had absorbed her pain through his contact with her wound. He needed to figure out his capabilities as this could be explored further but now it was not the correct moment.

  He kept himself closer, the scent in her confirmed it was similar to the girl who was with the headmaster, he didn't know why she had it on her. It was not fresh, but not old either. It seems she had a recent fight. Maybe what he was smelling was before a raid. Maybe a capture of sorts as he smelled iron and blood near her hands. The others carried similar traces. None of them smelled like they had any energy to be threats. None of them carried the sharp scent of someone ready to strike. They would only obstruct his main goal of running away, but he needed a group to hide in, so he would not be captured again.

  He needed distance from the mercenaries. He needed a way out… After spending so much time listening to the nonsense the alchemists talked about, the language they spoke made more sense for him as they didn't speak as encrypted as his captors. They would speak more directly in what they needed to communicate, those simple commands gave away their leader for Skuggi. Simple questions… Enough for him to mimic their voices to some extent.

  He drew in a breath and let out a sharp, broken cry. Then another… He shook his head violently, hitting the iron bars with the back of his head. The sound echoed inside the wagon. The other prisoners flinched, scared… He kept going… building up hysteria… Louder were his screams… His voice cracked. He slammed his head again. The guard in charge made sure the rope cut deeper into his wrists by tying it harder, but there was no more pain… He had suffered so much… so these things made no effect.

  The wagon slowed… Outside, horses snorted, scared by the dramatic act on Skuggi's side. Armor clinked nearby… A voice from a further distance arrived at the place of action, it barked an order towards the bothering noise. The wheels stopped completely under his orders. Skuggi kept screaming like a crazy lunatic. He let his breath break in uneven bursts. He dragged his nails across the floorboards to add more noise. A mercenary climbed onto the back of the wagon. His helmet hid his face, but the way he leaned forward showed irritation.

  “What’s wrong with that one…” Another voice answered from the ground.

  “He’s been like that since we pulled him out. Might be cracked in the head.” The knight grunted.

  “Get him out. Separate him. The commander wants silence.” ordered someone in a better looking armor.

  Hands strongly grabbed Skuggi by the arms and dragged him out of the wagon. As they took his blindfold the sunlight hit his eyes hard. He blinked through the brightness. The caravan stretched across the road… carts filled with prisoners passing by the stopped Caravan. The knights look a bit alike on horseback while lower position mercenaries were going on foot, and a few wagons marked with symbols he didn’t recognize.A man on a tall horse rode forward. His armor carried more decoration than the others. He spoke with the commander’s tone Skuggi had heard earlier. “Take that one into the trees. Fix whatever’s wrong with him. Then catch up.”

  One of the soldiers laughed under his breath. “If he doesn’t make it, no loss. They only want the ones who can use magic. The rest go to the markets.” Skuggi calmes down a bit chile they kept his head low. His breath came in ragged pulls. The slime mask held its shape. The knights saw a damaged man, not a creature built in a lab. Two soldiers dragged him toward the forest. Their grip tightened each time he stumbled. The trees swallowed the road behind them. The sounds of the caravan faded. Skuggi let his body hang limp for a moment. Then he opened his eyes fully… The soldiers didn’t notice… They had no idea what they were walking into.

  Skuggi kept the screams going, raw and uneven, the kind that bounced off stone and made the soldiers flinch. They dragged him by the arms through the trees, boots grinding dirt, curses slipping out between breaths. He let his head roll from side to side, while hitting against the branches, he tried to make use of anything that made the noise sharper. The soldiers didn’t bother to quiet him. They wanted him gone. They wanted a place out of sight.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  They spotted a cave near by behind a curtain of roots and a few trees. Damp air spilled out of it. One of the soldiers shoved him inside. His body hit the ground hard. Dust rose around him. The ropes bit into his wrists. He kept screaming until the echoes faded to check how deep it was, while letting out the idea he was out of his mind.

  The soldiers stood near the entrance to check no one else of the guards were approaching for what they were about to do, their armor catching the faint light. One of them nudged another with his elbow. “Who wants first? Thomas?”

  Skuggi lay still for a moment, eyes half?closed, listening. Their breaths told him more than their words. Fast… Uneven... Their hormones were skyrocketing. It was something else. Something he had seen in the lab before, when certain alchemists slipped into rooms they thought were empty. He didn’t want to look at them then. He didn’t want those images mixing with the ones already stuck in his head.

  The ropes around his wrists were loose. Too loose. They had tied him like someone who couldn’t think. He twisted his hands. The joints shifted with a dull pop. The rope slid free. He kept his arms behind him, pretending the bindings still held.

  The soldiers kept talking. Their voices carried a smug edge. They thought they had plenty of time to get entertained. They thought he was their broken toy… so they would fix it their own way.

  Skuggi pushed himself upright slowly, standing up slowly to gather a bit of balance. The soldiers didn’t notice at first as they were giving him the back. When they turned back, their faces tightened behind their helmets.

  “What… the…” one of them started.

  Skuggi didn’t let him finish. He picked a stone that had fallen from the ceiling earlier and threw it directly to his face, scratching it with a clean cut near the right cheek. That piece of stone went as fast as a bullet as he gathered strength from his knees. The guard was scared. He grabbed his sword out of fear, but both guards were scared and had trouble getting them out of the scabbard. Skuggi grabbed another stone and focused on shooting more precisely now… his fingers curled around it with more strength than he expected. He didn’t understand the full extent of the strength he had because of his muscles and bones inside him. Not yet…

  He threw the stone… It left his hand faster than he could track. It hit the nearest soldier’s head. The skull burst apart. Bone fragments scattered across the cave floor. The body dropped in a slow, heavy collapse. The other froze… As everything was happening another guard came because he wanted to have fun too with the slave, but he froze in place at the scene as he saw the other body falling down. Their minds lagged behind what their eyes saw. One grabbed the other’s shoulder and shoved him forward. The second soldier stumbled, sword already drawn… He charged… Skuggi raised his left forearm. The blade struck it with a sharp clang. The metal didn’t cut. The soldier’s eyes widened behind the visor.

  Skuggi pulled him closer with his right hand. The soldier lost his footing. Skuggi planted his weight, twisted his hips, and drove a spinning kick into the man’s chest. The impact sent the soldier crashing into the cave wall. His helmet hit stone with a hollow crack. He slid down and didn’t move. The last soldier backed up a step. His breath shook. His sword trembled in his grip. Skuggi straightened. His body still felt new, but he held his real capabilities. The cave air pressed against his skin, he heard something was about to fall if it got pushed enough. He looked at the ropes lying on the ground behind him. He wasn’t going back in chains.

  He looked back at the soldier and signaled at him to approach him now… The last soldier bolted from the cave mouth, boots scraping against stone as he stumbled into the open air. Skuggi heard him crashing through the undergrowth, breath sharp, voice cracking as he shouted for help as he ran back to the caravan. The sound carried far. Too far. The man wasn’t warning them, he was panicking.

  Skuggi moved quickly. He stripped the dead soldier of the green cloth worn under the armor. The fabric smelled of sweat and old metal. He wrapped it around his shoulders and chest, pulling it tight. The color matched the moss and leaves outside. It would break his outline long enough to hide.

  He stepped out of the cave and climbed the nearest tree. His fingers dug into the bark. The new bones in his arms held firm. He settled into the branches, body pressed against the trunk. The forest air cooled the sweat on his skin belonging to his first prey…

  Voices rose at the distance from the direction of the caravan. The soldier who escaped shouted over them, words tumbling out in a frantic rush. Skuggi caught pieces... Crippled… Killed them... Monster... The others laughed at first. The sound carried a mocking edge. They didn’t believe him.

  Then the soldier screamed again. Something in his voice shifted. The laughter stopped the moment they realized he was afraid… as if meeting death in front of his eyes… Orders followed... Sharp... Direct… A group broke off to hunt. Another stayed behind to guard the wagons.

  Skuggi listened to their steps from a distance of about 50 meters or less spreading through the forest. He counted at least six moving toward the cave. Their armor clinked with each stride. Their breaths came steady. They weren’t afraid yet… it seems they were more experienced than the other two

  He dropped from the tree and returned to the bodies. He searched the mercenary he had kicked into the wall, crushing his torso against it. The man carried a short sword with a worn grip, a knife tucked into his boot, and a small bow with a frayed string. Skuggi took all of it. The weight felt strange in his hands, but manageable.

  He checked the pockets next. A few coins. A strip of dried meat. A torn scrap of parchment with no markings. There was no map... Nothing that told him where he was or where he could go.

  He searched the second body. More coins. A broken compass. A leather pouch filled with herbs he didn’t recognize. Still no map.

  He crouched beside the last corpse. The man’s helmet had cracked with the stone. Skuggi pried in the torso armor and reached inside the tunic. A folded cloth sat against the man’s ribs. Skuggi pulled it free. Not a map… just a handkerchief stained with old blood.

  He exhaled through his nose. The forest rustled. The hunters were close now. Their boots pressed into the soil with a rhythm he could track. They moved in a loose line, spreading out to cover more ground.

  Skuggi tightened the green cloth around his shoulders. He gripped the short sword in his right hand and the knife in his left. The bow hung across his back. He didn’t know how to use it yet. He would learn later.

  For now, he needed distance. He needed a direction. He needed a place where the Order wouldn’t follow… A map would have made it easier… But he couldn't do anything without one… He stepped into the trees and vanished into the undergrowth before the hunters reached the cave…

  “???????? ??? ???????... ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ?????????...”

  “Monsters are mirrors... showing only the darkness we refuse to see in ourselves...”

  JosefH.SCreations youtube

  twitch.tv/josefhscreations

  kick.com/josefhscreations

  How was it??