It takes nothing to desire, to crave, to be a hero. Most everyone wants to be one, but all want doesn't make do. Which was why Rhoawyn couldn't quite understand how she ended up in this situation. Ended up being the hero, when she hadn't hoped to be. It was why regret was the only thing she felt when he grabbed her by the neck of her shirt, the strength of his grip enough to make breathing an impossible task.
He dangled Rhoawyn in the air over the boy who huddled into himself on the ground. The sick grin on his face was enough to make her gag, or maybe that was just a reflex from having her trachea slowly crushed.
"When are you Imaginaries going to learn that no one likes a Hero," the man-creature spat, Rhoawyn still hadn't decided which one she thought he is. She detected a hint of hatred in the rancid words, as the ache in her head expanded like an over-inflated balloon.
Maybe it's lights out... for good this time. I'll finally make dad proud. Rhoawyn's limbs relaxed, their incessant flailing taking up too much of her depleting energy. Before she completely clocked out, a whistling sound pierced the air next to her ear and her body plummeted to the ground.
Dragging much-needed oxygen into her lungs, she detected a thin slice to the hand that was clenching the life out of her. Pebbles of blood dotted to the surface and poking from the ground by her leg was a blood-stained playing card.
Of course, he found me. But Rhoawyn didn't know if she was thankful he had.
She turned her head in the direction that she heard the whistle of the card come from, and her eyes landed on Eli's smug face, as he approached them from the thick of the woods.
"Well, I'd be lying if I said I knew you wouldn't run." Eli chuckled, drawing out another card from the skin of his forearm. It differed from the first one—which had three upward arrows on the face. This one was blank.
Rhoawyn grimaced at his comment, but Eli's arrival seemed to make Rhoawyn and the boy's presence non-existent to the creature standing over them, so she took the time to attempt to move him away from danger.
She scooted closer to the child, careful to move slowly, so as not to frighten him any further.
"Hey," she spoke in a voice soft like the one she used when she talked with the roly-polys she collected when she was younger. The boy peered up at her from the cover of his elbow, and she smiled. "Let's get you out of here, ok?" The boy nodded—fresh tear tracks lining his cheeks.
He tried to move, but the blows he took to his side cause him too much pain. His injuries were likely more serious than she anticipated—if she took the blood he coughed up earlier into account.
"I'm going to have to carry you okay," Rhoawyn said, and the boy nodded his head again, afraid to make a sound. Afraid to get caught.
Rhoawyn hoisted him up as best she could, trying not to jostle him around. He whimpered—the pain of motion unavoidable—and just as Rhoawyn got into a starting position to run back into the clearing behind Eli; the creature acknowledged them, seething.
"Where do you think you're going?" he questioned. It was rhetorical. He didn't plan on letting them go anywhere. Rhoawyn stared into the dark void of his eyes as the ground beneath their feet trembled.
Not again.
The telltale sound of the earth splitting open around the bottom of the creature's stance ricocheted through the air. Rhoawyn darted into the clearing before he can grab her. The boy clung to her with all his might, as she forced herself to run as quickly and evenly as possible—minimizing his pain. What she didn't notice, at least until she made it safely behind Eli, is that the creature wasn't chasing after them.
Instead, he stood rigid—unmoving—with Eli's blank card lodged into the meat of his shoulder.
"Now don't leave me hanging, Paraly," Eli taunted, stepping further away from the clearing. "I'd like to get some playtime in too."
"You know t-this thing?" Rhoawyn hissed, as she gently placed the boy, now passed out from the pain, down onto the soft of the grass.
"I have friends from all around," Eli raised his voice, turning back to give Rhoawyn a wink.
"There's no friendship to be had between us Imaginary. We Mares despise your kind," the creature bellowed.
There's that word again. Imaginary. Rhoawyn thought she'd heard Eli mention it earlier when she had first woken up, but she assumed he was talking nonsense. Mare is definitely new, though. What does it mean? Eli took a confident step forward.
"Wait, Eli, be careful. The ground isn't steady. Isn't safe," Rhoawyn warned.
"Aww, little squirrel, are you worried about me?"
Rhoawyn scowled. "On second thought, walk right over." And when Eli chuckled, she thought she might want him to get swallowed up by the Mare—Paraly's—void.
"Don't worry, I'm the only one on earth that hole will open up for right now," Eli assured, and Rhoawyn was confused until she glanced at the bottoms of Eli's feet and saw the same growing vortex beneath them that was once circled Paraly's.
"What are you playing it, Imaginary?" Paraly roared above the sound of the vortex expanding where he stood, still frozen.
"Just a little parlor trick. I know the first time we met you didn't get a chance to see me in action. But today is your lucky day."
Eli slowly widened his stance—the light from the gravemark on his forearm glowing softly. As the gap between his feet grew, so does the sinking of the earth under Paraly's.
Is Eli a Mare like Paraly? But that can't be it, Rhoawyn wondered. He called him an Imaginary.
"My cards let me do some fun sleight of hand. They might not be as flashy as your void, but they're definitely luckier," Eli said. "If you hadn't been so eager to strangle my clueless protege, and hungry for Apex flesh, you would have noticed my speed card before it sliced you."
Rhoawyn ignored the clueless comment and thought back to the card on the ground when Paraly dropped her. Was that his speed card? And what does he mean, "Apex flesh?"
"Once that baby got even a drop of your blood, you were open for business. The deck was on my side today, so I drew a blank, which paralyzes anyone whose blood is on my speed card." Eli grins. "And what good is a manifestation in the hands of someone who can't move?" he asked, dragging one of his feet backward against the ground, and the hole sucked Paraly in.
Rhoawyn could spot the third card on the ground near Paraly's shoe. It had a question mark in the center, just like the one he'd shown her in the hospital.
"That one lets me be you for a bit," Eli paused, rubbing his fingers over his chin. "Well, the better version. Gotta say though, this void of yours is pretty neat."
"Seems I've underestimated you, Imaginary," Paraly conceded, but his twisted grin was back on his face, even as he slowly descended. "Guess that old captain was right to keep you hidden. Didn't want such a valuable manifestation to go to waste, did she? What was her name again? Ci–" Paraly began, but Eli clenched his jaw and rutted his foot back with brute force, jerking Paraly into his own void.
The earth closed over and quieted as if it had never been open to begin with. Eli uttered something under his breath, but Rhoawyn couldn't quite make it out. Couldn't quite wrap her head around anything that has happened, as he stepped back over toward her and the boy. She neglected an attempt to make sense of it all in favor of the boy she had almost forgotten.
Rhoawyn moved to check the child's pulse, but Eli scooped him up before she had the chance—effortlessly carrying him in a sturdy arm. He used his free hand to rake through his trench coat pocket, revealing a small test tube with a vibrant blue substance capped in by a cork. He bit it with perfect teeth and spit it to the ground, guzzling the contents of the glass with a satisfied sigh.
"Let's go back," he said, curt. And Rhoawyn had half a mind to make a run for it again, but she didn't want to bump into any more Mares. Didn't want to go back before she had answers. So she followed him with inquiry on her tongue.
"Don't you need those cards back?"
"Huh?" He glanced at her, "Oh, the ones I threw back there? Nah, they'll disintegrate pretty soon. If I don't get the chance to phase them back into my deck, they lose their energy. Just dead skin blowing away in the wind now."
Rhoawyn wrinkled her nose at the disgusting visual.
"Is that man...you know?"
"Dead?"
Rhoawyn bristled, still not used to hearing him say the abrasive term.
"I'd imagine so. I've never known of a Mare who could survive being sucked into a hole in the ground. Especially one that hasn't fed." Eli laughed, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He seemed off. Annoyed.
"Fed? On what? On hu-" On the stuff you just drank?
"All in due time," Eli interrupted.
And Rhoawyn stopped her questioning for now, not wanting to rile him. She wondered what kind of world The Apex has forced her into.