Story of the Creators

What Once was Strong

*** The sports grounds of the Black Hounds protected by the Mountain of Darkness ***

His heart pounds against his chest. His lungs quickly suck and spit the air, so that his body could keep going. Behind him a thunderous rush of paws roared as the piled meat and muscle behind them slap and slash the ground in an uncontrolled chase.

He looked ahead calculating how his feet were supposed to transverse the distance ahead. Before him was a tall wooden pillar, an oak that had collapsed from age, laying across his path. He needed to keep his speed and couldn't slow down for a moment. His legs curled and the floor beneath him pushed away as he leapt across the blockage. As his body moved over the fallen pillar, an overhanging branch extended from a nearby tree appeared before him. 

His face slammed into the branch forcing him to the ground. As his back met the ground, he lost all speed and momentum. The wind left his chest as time seemed to slow. His vision blurred. His hearing faded to an eerie silence. Then, as if from nowhere, his ears were overwhelmed as the thunderous hounding of his pursuers erupted once more.

His arms reached out as he clutched at the ground in a panic. His legs shuffling backwards until his body slid up against the fallen wooden creature now his only protector against his enemy. He curled up against the base of the oak. 

He lay helpless, frozen in fear as a deafening silence attacked him. It was clear to him that the beasts had leapt into the air to transverse his protector. Paws slowly crept along his vision as they cleared the bark in front of his eyes. Slowly arms then a torso followed. He held his breath to try and not make a sound. Remaining perfectly still. Suddenly time returned to normal as their paws touched ground and without a thought, darting away. 

In relief his lips opened and his breath slowly escaped his lungs. His gaze fell to the ground in relaxation. His eyes closed slightly to release tension for a moment.

Around him other sounds began finding their way back to his ears. His breath gliding over the dirt in front of him as he realised he was laying across the ground. The wind whistled through the tree tops. Leaves fluttering in the wind. Birds cheeping happily to their own little lives. As the noises around him came to full picture. Sounds he was purposefully blocking out had returned. The snapping of undergrowth, clicking of movinggears, hissing of pistons and squeal of metal scrapping on metal.

The rotting log he rested beneath condensed under pressure. The clicking became louder. A deafening scream that filled his ears. His head twitched, turning looking to the sky. He waited for the heavens to be blocked out by the beast of metal and heat. It had commanded the four legged hounds growling and sprinting away from their target. Their ears ready and propped to hear his every command.

The clicking of small mechanical gears, the hand drifting forward into view. The thin, bony fingers crept into sight twitching in the air.The metal fingers wrapped around the log grasping it for support. The clicking growing with each movement. The man laid there, completely helpless and frozen in his place. Another metallic hand appeared. It reached out and clenched down upon the ground allowing a pivoting point for the entirety of its mass to scrape across and over the log. It planted its large platforms of feet down in front of the helpless man, cementing itself into the ground.

The metal beast stood upright so it towered over the man and his dying log. It seemed to growlas it searched for its target. Its neck squealed in protest from turning in search. A moment that stretched for an eternity passed. The Metal beasts leg lifted and began moving forward. Marching in pursuit of its hounds, without any knowledge of the small piece of flesh petrified in fear under a rotting log just behind.

Once the metal beast was out of sight the man remained still, not risking being discovered. Only once the painful call of the metal beast was long past, he decided to move. Slowly he crept out of his hole. His eyes darting around searching for anything that would mean his undoing.