Michael Lockheed - The Story

[King of the Mushan 33]

Where first there was screaming, now there was silence.

Where there was fear, now calm.

Where there was urgency, now a slowness.

Where there was chaos, now emptiness.

Emptiness as Michael Lockheed returned from having blacked out.

He looked around as his vision returned to him, trying desperately to piece together where he was or how he got there. The first thing he saw was the cobblestone path he was laying on. The first thing he felt were the aches in his body. Then the rain. Then he saw the grass. The cool grass bathed by the downpour sprouted from the dreary ground all around him. Michael began to hear the pattering of the raindrops on the stone before him, and began to feel his hair sticking to his head. 

The more he looked, the more he saw. Towering pines, talus slopes, a grey horizon. This was home, alright. This was Gilneas. Where on the peninsula, though, Michael had no idea. He pushed himself up a bit. Onto his knees, at least. Every point of his body that touched the ground ached and hurt. As if his bones had been yanked from their sockets, bent, and pushed back. Michael looked down at his hands, and froze dead in his tracks. There upon his hands, slowly dripping away in the rain, was blood. But how?!

He began to panic. He wiped his hand on his shirt and wiped his brow clean, only to reveal more blood on his hand again. He hadn't felt his hair against his head. He looked around desperately, hoping for an explanation, but the memories began flooding him before he had the chance.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Michael, dammit, barricade the door!" Came the shout from down the hall.

"On it!" Michael found himself shouting back, grasping at the wooden hat-pole by the door and wedging it to keep the door closed.

There were shouts all around him, and chaos. He turned to look around, get a bearing for his surroundings, and he began to remember. Five other people were barricaded in this house with him, and each of them was scrambling to do something to help.

There was Bennett Mose, the Gardener. He and Michael weren't close, but he was around town, and they knew each other. He was running up the stairs, probably to get a better view. Then there was Mary Longmire, the town Secretary. She and Michael were friends, but nothing more. She was hefting a crate to the window to blockade it. Then, there was Samuel Ives, Michael's best friend, standing just in the hall and shouting orders, attempting futilely to take control of a chaotic situation. Behind him was Jonas, Michael's brother, pulling a hunting rifle off the wall and brandishing it. And then, standing just beside Michael, there was Jessica Craul, Michael's partner for years.

How the six of them had managed to make it into this house together, Michael couldn't remember, all he knew was that everything happened in a blur.

First there was the crashing of wood, a sharp pain in Michael's back, a gunshot, and then he was on the floor. He began to hear voices again in this memory.

"Michael, are you okay? Did that thing get you?"

"Get him in the back room."

"Someone barricade that door again!"

"Fucking hell, Jonas, right in my damn ear?!"

Before Michael knew it, he was on a bed, and Jess was looking over him. Was he okay? Michael still didn't know what had happened to him, but the dread feeling was beginning to sink into his stomach as the vision in his memory blurred and turned color.

Michael fell back onto the stone of the path as his stomach sank, all the pieces falling together to reveal his fate. He remembered looking up at Jess as he eyes went wide and he face turned to fear. He heard her scream. He looked at his hand and his heart went cold. There before him was no hand, but a claw, five long, sharp, black talons emerging from it, covered in a dark hair. He was one of them...

---------------------------------------------------

Michael screamed into the wilderness as he pushed himself up. First a kneel, then to a standing position. He screamed again, and again, into the rainy twilight. He was one of them, he knew it. He had somehow gotten from the inside of that packed house to this stone path, and he had the sickening feeling that the blood on his hands and on his head was not his own...

But why wasn't he that monster now? He was then... But now he was just as much a human as the five others in that chaotic house. He screamed once more, then began hobbling. Then walking. Then running. He ran into the woods, becoming faster and faster as he pointed himself directly towards the Greymane Wall...

Edited January 3, 2018 by valorous141