The Long Road into Night #29

It is your 29^th day on the dark road.  Where you were before, you do not know.  Why you originally came here, you do not know.  Why you stayed and why you still remained, was because somewhere inside of you, there was a need to be here.  Once it had been something else, but now it was to hunt.

You were the hunter of the long night, and these pitiful creatures were your prey.  Their flesh was yours to tear.  Their bones were meant to be broken between your teeth.  Their final scream in your ears, would be like finest music.  In a howl you shout your desires, and normally they would all cower in fear.

The retched goblin however had tied your jaw shut, and quite well at that.  The howl that should have chilled the dead, instead sounded like a sad little whimper.  This did not please you, as again you struggled helplessly against your bindings.  Those damn goblins could really tie a knot.

“Please hold him,” the young Meek girl asked the goblins.  “I don’t him hurting himself.”

“Mongo can hold him,” the giant troll said, from above the gathering. “Mongo make sure he never moves again.”

“Thank you, Mongo,” the girl politely said. “You did very well before, but I believe Sic and Hic will manage okay this time.”

Mongo grumbled something and from your view, he did not look happy.  Now those disgusting little imps had their hands on you again.

“I like Mongo’s idea better,” Hic said sourly.  “This is not how things are done here.  I never had a problem with the rules before this one came along.  You are supposed to let things be in this world, not get involved.”  He glared at Sic.  “I blame you for this.”

“I’m sorry, Hic,” Sic sighed.  “It just didn’t seem right to leave this one to that witch, Gelda.”

“Right…?” Hic scoffed.  “There is no ‘right’ in this world.  Just a lot of ‘wrong’, which smarter individuals than us, know better than to interfere with.”

“Not this time,” the young girl interjected.  “This one is different.  I told you, it has a purpose.”  She looked down at you.  “This one is not Meek, not goblin, and not like any other who walks this world.”

She slowly knelt down beside you.  If the bindings were the least bit loose, you would have had her throat.  She laid a hand on your side, and you flinched at pain that did not come. 

What is this girl’s game?

“Do you remember me?” she looked at you pleadingly.

Your whimpered growl is the best ‘no’ she’d get from you.

“Ellie,” Sic, the other goblin cautiously said.  “Maybe Hic is right.  Maybe we should let Mongo have him.”

“No,” Ellie said firmly.  Her voice was rising.  “He is not like us.  He does not belong here, nor does he deserve to be here.  I know that I do… but not him.” She shook her head.  “The ‘One’ doesn’t get to keep him,” she added sharply.

The goblins looked at each other skeptically.  They continued to hold you through the long silence filled the clearing.  Ellie brushed the fur away from your eye that faced her, and looked deeply into it.

“I know that you are in there,” she whispered softly.  “It is like you have fallen in a well, and have landed deep in the darkness.  You’re just simply waiting to be tossed a rope.”  Ellie smiled but sadly.  “That, I can do.”

She closed her glowing eyes.  After a moment, a small crystal tear flowed down her right cheek.  Her eyes opened.  With her finger, she dabbed the tear from her cheek and looked at it.

“This will be your rope,” she said.  “You are lost with no memories of your own.  So I give you one of mine… a human memory, from a time when I was.  I give it freely.  Please use it to pull yourself from the well.”

Panic fills you, and you try to struggle, but again those damn goblins and their knots.

Ellie touched the crystal tear to the side of your head, and this time the pain comes, like a red-hot poker being stabbed into your brain.

There was a blinding light, and then there was nothing.

In 2 days - Halloween.

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