Captured
#5 of Rising Downfall
The fourth part of Rising Downfall. What will he do now that he's been captured?
I don't remember anything after I had passed out, only to awaken to a major sting in my side. I shouted out in pain as I sat up and looked to see my sister.
"Galena?" I asked looking a bit confused.
"Well, good morning to you, too," she replied. "Hold still, I'm not done putting the bandages on you."
"Huh?" I looked down to see my belly wrapped in bandages, covering up my wound. I looked around to see that I was in theHawktownHospital. "What...what happened?"
"Well, we found you in the field on the ground not to far from our father. We thought you were killed as well for you have lost a lot of blood. We did stop the bleeding."
"How...how long was I out?"
"3 days. We managed to rebuild a good portion of the town. Luckily, the hospital was the only building that didn't take any major damage." She puts the finishing touches on my bandage. "There. All done..."
"Thanks..." I said in a depressed tone.
"Guil." She puts her hand on my shoulder. "It's not your fault."
"I feel like it is... If only I had stayed in the house...Argh! I'm so stupid!" I felt so guilty. I let my father die...and witnessed yet another one of my family members' death. The second parent, gone. And I couldn't do anything to prevent it.
"Guil, stop beating yourself up over this. We're all at a loss here. It's nobody's fault."
I looked at her. She wanted to cry as much as I do, but she was fighting the feeling. I told her that it was okay to cry. She picked me up carefully and held me close to her, like our mother would. We remain in that room, crying.
A few days later after the funeral, I've spent most of my times in solitude. I was never myself after the departure of both my parents. First, my mother died due to an illness. And now, my father has been murdered. It's going to be hard to get through life without a Mom or a Dad.
My brothers and sister try to spend time with me, but I would turn them down. I was too depressed to think about, or do, anything else. I would either be in my room or out in the field where my father and I used to train.
I sat in the field one evening watching the sunset when I got an unexpected visitor: Grazar. He flew down and sat down next to me, waiting for me to say something. I didn't. I just looked over at him. He looked back and I could tell he was hurt as much as I was. He desperately wanted to cry. He had lost his closest friend.
"How are you holding up, kid?" he asked me in a low voice.
"Not too good, I guess," I replied. "You?"
"Could be better... I feel like I lost a brother."
I continued to look at him.
"I've known that warrior since he was a baby. And I know his father...and his father before that. All of them were very close friends of mine..." I noticed a tear in his eye. "I remember the last thing he said to me: A favor he wanted to ask me." He looked at me. "Do you want to know what he said to me?"
I blinked and slowly nodded.
"He... He asked me...to look after you. To take his place and be...your father. I could never replace him. You are his son. Not mine." He wiped his face, growling and then he slammed his fist on the ground. "Damn you, Nixon! You arrogant fool! You knew this was going to happen! Why didn't you tell me?!" Man, I've never seen Grazar like that. He was in so much pain and crying.
Thankfully, my father taught me how to shift from my human form to my dragon form. I was now a dragon as I started nuzzling him, hoping this would calm him down.
He sniffed and looked at me.
"Th-Thanks, little one..."
"If there's one thing I do know, it's my father still being here...in our hearts... His spirit lives on...always."
"You really are the splitting image of your father. At least, there's a piece of him still here on this planet. And that is his son."
"Shucks..." This is a new side of Grazar that we are seeing here. He looked over at me again and smiled.
"I will pick up where your father left off. I will look after you as if you were my own and I will train you... This is what I promised to your father."
I tilted my head. "Is that the only reason?"
He shook his head. "To be honest, no. I like you, Guil. You remind me of... Well, me. When I was a hatchling."
"I feel a lot better now," I said sarcastically.
"Very funny, runt." We smirked at each other and laughed.
Ever since then, Grazar has been hanging around me, keeping an eye on things. He's shown me new flying techniques and he's shown me how to improve my fire power. My fireballs were now flamethrowers at a good range as well. Grazar really knew what he was doing. Even my brothers and sister were impressed.
A few weeks have gone by since the training and Grazar and I were relaxing near a lake one evening, observing the fish swimming in it. It was a very peaceful time, until we heard an explosion nearby.
"Stay here," he said, looking in the direction of the explosion. "I'll go look. Probably those stupid humans and their fireworks again." He got up and went in the direction.
I looked around as well, reverting back to my human form. Sensing this was a trap, I took out my dagger for I could already sense danger. For a few minutes, I kept hearing bushes rustling. Then, it stopped. I lowered my guard for just that second. BAM! I got hit from behind! By what? I don't know. I blacked out before I could see and before I could hit the ground.
When I opened my eyes, I realized I wasn't in Hawktown anymore. I was thrown into a cell. Trying to look for an escape route, I scampered around the cell. No dice. Just great...
A few minutes later, I heard my cell door unlocking and it opened slowly. Two guards came in and looked at me.
"Alright kid, this way," one of them said. I sighed and remained silent, getting up and walking with them down the hallway, passing empty cells. Am I in jail? What did I do? And where is everyone? They led me to a room where everyone else was at. It looked like an assembly was about to begin.
One of the guards said to sit in the back row so they could keep an eye on me. Oh please. As I looked around the room, a man in a suit wearing a mask comes out on a stage. The mask he was wearing was purple with a bunch of yellow feathers and squiggly decorations on it. Bleck! What a ugly mask! I didn't realize we were attending a poor excuse for a masquerade ball.
"Greetings," the masked man spoke. "I am sure you are wondering why you are here. You are here to work. You are here for our amusement. You are here to entertain us. You will obey our rules. Work when we say work. You will eat when we say eat. You will sleep when we say sleep. Show any disrespect toward us or disobey any of these rules, you will be punished based on your actions.
"There will also be when you must fight each other for your own survival. You will have no choice but to participate in our little tournament. Failure to comply and you will be sentenced to death. Now, you will be given a number. Whoever has the same numbers will share a cell. Up to 4 people in a cell. No visitors. Your cells will be listed on this sheet of paper." He holds up a sheet of paper with cell numbers and such. They have this all planned out for us. "You will start working in 20 minutes. We will now give you your number and your cell."
Everyone had to line up and they gave people their numbers of 1 - 20. I was lucky number 7, but looks like luck has nothing to do with this. The guards directed me to my cell. It wasn't until others moved in with me. We spent the 20 minutes in this cramped cell, setting up where we sleep. We didn't take the time to get to know one another. They didn't seem obliged.
We were soon headed, or directed, to the work area. It was basically where people are forced to mine for minerals that can be use to create lethal weapons for upcoming wars. Then, it hit me. I knew where I was. I was captured by The Masked Eagles and now, I was going to be their slave, harvesting things to aid them in their diabolical plans to conquer my home once again. Unless I can find a way out of here, I can kiss my life goodbye. This could take months of planning... Or years.
It was rough in here. Everywhere I went, people gave me weird looks like I was the enemy. They were giving me the cold shoulder. To make things worse, I have this aching toothache. God, where did this come from? Was it from something I ate? I skipped lunch to find a bathroom that had a mirror in it. Opening my mouth, I saw that one of my teeth were of pure gold. Where'd that come from? I thought I was getting a cavity.
Word soon got out around the place that I had a gold tooth. These no-good crooks tried everything to pry these tooth away from me. Raiding my cell in the middle of the night, jumping me in the cafeteria; they even tried to kill me with a pick-ax while we were mining again. They all tried and, fortunately for me, they all failed. They thought that I wasn't onto their little schemes. Idiots. One thing that I didn't understand: My cell mates didn't try anything to take it. Boy, was I celebrating too soon.
Apparently, they sensed that I was lowering my guard because all of the cruel cell mates were starting to cease ambushing me every chance that they got. Or were they planning one major ambush that'll be the end of me? I was on my way back to my cell after working for 15 hours straight. As soon as they heard the cell doors open, they immediately grabbed me and held me down. Then, he stepped over... A big, grey dragon with black wings held a rotten spork in his paw, grinning evilly at me. Oh God! I squirmed around to get free, but the two brutes held me in place. The dragon leaned down and held my mouth open as he started digging the spork into my golden tooth. Screaming in agony, I kept moving around, but that made it worse, so I stopped. Within a few minutes, he yanked my tooth out and observed it closely, gazing at its beauty. He signaled his buddies to let go of me and they both got in their bunks and went to sleep. I was coughing violently and coughing up blood for now I looked like a pirate. I slowly climbed into my bed and went to sleep, wiping the blood from my mouth.
The next morning I had overslept and, just my luck, there was no breakfast left. I sighed and sat at the table, starving. My stomach was growling so loud that the whole building could hear it. My cellmates noticed me and they came over to the table I was sitting at. What do they want now? They didn't do anything. The dragon just smiled at me.
"You doing okay, kid?" he asked in a friendly tone.
I didn't buy this sudden sympathy
"What do you want?" I replied in a cold voice.
"Just making a conversation, making sure you was alright."
"After what you and your lackeys did?!"
He looked away for a second, and then he looked back at me. He passed something over to me and I looked to see he turned my tooth into a necklace. I looked at him in confusion. What did he do to my tooth?
"W-Why did you...?"
"Saved you from more harassment here. I overheard that they were going to resort to more 'drastic measures' to get that tooth from you. My friends and I had to get that tooth from you. We saved your life, kid."
I shot him a smug look. "You expect me to believe that? You had to same goal as they did so why are you telling me this?"
"I wanted to scare them. Unfortunately, we had to go to their level of things so they would back off. We tried to find another way to get that tooth out of you. Sorry if we hurt you there." He saw the look on my face, which was of uncertain. Half of me want to believe he's telling the truth, the other half is telling me that he's lying and I should make him pay for what he did to me.
He sighed. "Look, let's just start from the beginning and introduce ourselves. I'm Sly Mitchell. These two are my good friends, Shadow and Python."
I looked over at the both of them. Shadow is a black and grey wolf and Python is a brown fox. Shadow has a chipped ear with yellow eyes while Python sat next to him with one tooth sharper than the rest of his teeth. Judging by the stripes on his tail, I bet some people would mistake him for a raccoon.
"Hope we didn't scare you too bad," Shadow said in a apologetic tone.
"What do you go by, kid?" Python asked politely.
I guess I can trust them...for now.
"...Guil..."
"Well, Guil, consider us the first three friends you have in here," Sly said.
"Oh, goody..." I said sarcastically.
"Oh, come on. Don't be like that."
"I lost a tooth. Must I remind you?"
"No sir. But believe me; a stronger one will grow back in its place. Besides, it was loose anyway. So consider that being your baby tooth."
"Well... Thanks, I guess."
"From now on, the four of us are a team."
"Why recruit me?"
"I've seen how you fight. You're a good fighter. Where'd you learn to fight for someone of your stature?"
"My... My father taught me..."
He sensed that voice had changed, so he changed the subject.
"It's about time we start planning on how to get out of here."
I looked at him. "What?"
He smirked at me. That certainly got my attention.