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pernatius · 5 years

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The Forbidden Blade: Ch 29

Ch 28

I haven’t spoken to anyone since they took him, nor have I moved an inch. It’s been quite some time since then. My knees have gotten numb, and my back is starting to cramp. Still, no matter how much my body anguishes I refuse to succumb to its pleas.

“Arthus.” I can sense her standing right behind me with wide, sympathetic eyes. Not only that, but I can hear her gulp and shift her hand as well. Most likely shifting her hand towards the wound Beatrice had caused. She, after some time, stepped towards me and placed her other hand onto my shoulder. A part of me wants to flinch, but I instead act like I hadn’t noticed.

Coming from above, a water droplet slides off the end of the vine dangling between a crack in one of the hundreds of bricks to the tip of my nose. After I wipe off the aftermath, I become mesmerized by my newly wet finger. In a heartbeat, I crush the reminiscences of the drop with a fist. Then, with rage boiling inside me, fling the hand into the pool where I watched my reflection distort from the ripples I have caused in my fit. When my eyes land on my reflection’s birthmark I let out a shout. As useless as that may have been to anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence, it puts me at ease. Panting, I lay my knees and hands perfectly flat on the ground. Thus, I position myself back into a kneel.

“Arthus,” her voice trailed off. In her reflection, I can see her looking away.

My eyes water. “My father,” my tears splash into the pool, “He is right! I am a failure and nothing more.”

Now beside me, she has me turn to face her solemn eyes with both her hands on my shoulders. “Are you giving up already?”

“Of course I am. I can’t do anything else.“

“You’re the prince.”

"Yeah, I think we established that a few days ago.”

"Are you just going to let your people die, everyone die? Just like that? Giving up is not in your nature. You pushed yourself to complete the lesson no matter how much it hurt you to finish. As stupid as it was, you ran to your teacher’s side even if it meant angering me. Though you may have not stood the victor that time and ended with a decision you continue to question yourself over you choose what you believed was the right thing, which is an important trait to have in your position, and one not many people have. Arthus, you are so much more than what you keep telling yourself. Look, fighting with yourself over whether it was truly right won’t get him back. Doing something will.”

Her words hung with motivation, yes, but I can’t stop myself from replaying the events she spoke of in painful detail: Xyetius trying to fight back his pain while putting up a pitiful fight against the attackers, Reess’s bones snapping, her crying for mercy, and seeing my hope dwindle once Zelous came into play. Seeing that demon in my mind was one thing, but seeing him in person with his red eyes piercing my soul was another. Reess's screams began to echo in my mind, as Xyetius's lifeless corpse appeared before me. Wait, the vision and sounds vanish, there was something else than the pity of it all. "Large City," is what Xyetius said to me before he became unconscious.

"Large city," I repeated out loud unknowingly.

"Large city,” Reess questioned.

"Yeah, it's what Xyetius said."

"Vague as it is, but why on earth would he say that unless-"

"Unless what?"

"If I am correct, as based upon what you had told me when we first met, he might be talking about the capital of the next empire over. Somewhere hidden inside the city lies a man who can teach you how to fight. Though, I haven’t heard of him in quite some time.”

"The Empire of Ignitus, why did it have to be there? I’ll be killed on sight the moment they spot my birthmark.”

"It's a good thing they won't."

Again, we travel inside the hidden home of the Crows. Well, not exactly hidden per say considering it’s based inside the largest mountain in the entire Empire of Krala. It’s more towards how somehow an entire tribe of people managed to hide under our noses for so long, but somehow Xyetius had found it. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. After several twists and turns, she slides open a door that greets us with a luxurious garden filled with fruits and Crows alike. Seeing some of the latter reach for their spears, I can feel bile climb up my throat.

"My people, the Prince of Krala needs your help."

One of them pushes himself forward, a few feet in front of me. His stature must’ve been an inch taller than my own, and considering not a single wrinkle taints his skin I can rightfully guess he is about my age. His bluntness as well adds to this fact, "I'd rather cut off that of which dangles between my legs before all of the Crows to watch right now than to help such a person."

"Then, it is a good thing we don’t need your help." Mumbling to himself and rolling his eyes, he pushes himself back into the crowd.

She continues, "Now, for the rest I need the finest welders of the tribe. Zelous is back into our reality, but the prince is going to stop him. I understand your resentment, but he had just saved my life at the cost of his teacher’s. I don’t speak before you, asking for your help, purely to repay him. No, but to answer Zya’s call. Moments ago she had asked for us in the defeat of Zelous.”

I'm the only one. So many lives, not just the People of Krala, rest in my hands. No, stop it Arthus. It's not the time to stress. Right now I should be focusing on what's happening. Zya? When did she get to speak with her? She’s been with me this whole time. Unless it’s a lie.

"Please," I let my words hang, "I need your help. Our history isn’t the cleanest, but now isn’t the time for us to fight. Now is the time we must put aside our differences and unite as one.”

A man with a scraggly beard stumbles himself out from the crowd. “If Zya had asked for us then I must answer, especially at the cost of my children’s lives.” After him, comes several others with stern looks on their faces.

Ten feet away, and I can still feel the burning heat of the lava. A bubble grew on its surface, and when it popped its lava splattered just inches from me. Behind me, it ate through rock. The smarter thing would be to move, but I stayed because I am transfixed. Transfixed not only by the glowing red and yellow coming from the pits around me, but how in sync the Crows are while their tools hit rock. Sparks fly out because of this. So, because of how distracted I am, I jumped when a hand was laid onto my shoulder. “Relax. It's just me,” a familiar female voice says.

"Reess." Relief strikes me, yes, but it shifts into dire curiosity and concern remembering what I saw during our ritual when my eyes darted back to the pits. "Inside that pool, while we were in sync, was that-"

"Yes, who you had seen was my teacher. Though, another him.”

#105 #the forbidden blade #creatve writing #writers on tumblr #multi chapter #chapter 29

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followcb · 6 years

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Hold Your Line

quiet, never

what are words for

if no one uses them

anymore

the art of conversation

requires active participants

engaged and thoughtful interaction

to express what's important to convey

no room for

reluctance, hesitation

there's something that needs to be

said

points to discuss

arguments supported by facts

transparency and integrity

stand up, voice your truths

search for the right words

resist, misplaced power

gather unbiased information

from differentiating sources

hold your line

a wallflower

you are not

supposed to be

FollowCB | Copyright June 2, 2018

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lunarxjuniper · 6 years

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Red.

She always had a special relationship with the colour red. As a kid it was her favourite colour - she loved seeing the cardinals and watching the sunsets and playing with the leaves in the fall. But when we met at the first football game of ninth grade, aptly named "Red Feather", she told me that she hated every shade of red imaginable.

As I later learned, she didn't exactly have the easiest childhood. Her father struggled with alcohol problems before passing away when she was just ten; her mother was a student who could barely make time for her; and her elementary school "friends" were really just manipulative bullies baiting her into bad situations. She was teased, insulted, and even physically abused at the merciless hands of her exploitative entourage. One day, after a particularly nasty fall down a flight of stairs, she stood up to find that she’d lost the ability to see her favourite colour.

Imagine never being able to look at a sunset and see the brilliant novas of crimson and orange, instead only being met with blotchy grey clouds of lost colour. Every springtime cardinal had been transformed into a monochrome memento of her haunting past, and every autumnal oak had become a flurry of migraine-inducing blurs.

She couldn't see the colour of my heart, couldn't see the beauty in her blush, and couldn't see the blood that dripped into the sink every time she raked her rusty razors into her wrists.

But I could. I saw every shade of sombre scarlet, every dismal drop of dahlia when all she saw was her lifeless grey blood.

Yet that only pushed me to love her all the more. In fact, I remember the very first time she saw red again. We were sitting at the top of a sand dune overlooking the lake that we lived by, and as the sun set she cried at the colours, glimpsing the red-tinted clouds for the first time in years. I don't know why she saw them then, but I do remember holding her hand and finally forgetting the tally-mark scars engraved into her arms.

Years passed. As they did her colourblindness shifted and her scars faded into little more than white lines indistinguishable from the details in her wrists. The love we shared dwindled and we both moved on. We graduated and went off to university. I moved out. And even though I know that she'll face hardships again in the future, I hope that every time she sees the weathered marks on her arms she imagines the colour red... As a reminder of every self-destructive habit she fought through, every moment that she struggled with and survived, every time she put the razor down instead of dissecting herself.

She may be the strongest person that I've ever met. I've felt the heat of the fires that burn behind her dark brown eyes, I've witnessed the determination they can instill within her, and I swear those fires burn the brightest shade of red that I've ever seen.

#creatve writing #colourblind #red

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hundredyearspublishing · 6 years

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Jessica Kelsey creates a captivating world in her story ‘The Blackout’. We can’t wait for you to read it!!!

Check out our Kickstarter, you might even get a reward!

kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hundredyearspub/blue-pencils-vol-ii?ref=creator_nav

#blue pencils II #hundred years publishing #technology #blackout #writers write #creatve writing

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thecynical-idealist · 6 years

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Your wet hair And the childlike secrets In the rings of smoke from your cheap cigarettes. The words you say Almost singing [We are broken And we don't give a damn] Like buzzing bees Are unintelligible. The last thing on earth is your smile Over a sea of blue hydrangeas. [Did you know?] It all sounds like summer It all sounds like strangeness It all sounds like silence.

“Neruda”, The Cynical Idealist.

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averagejack · 2 years

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I love poetry cause you can literally pull anything out of your ass and people'll be like "damn that was deep man" like no tf it wasn't.

#poetry #like literally shes puttng it in this magazine thing cause she likes it so much #bullshit #school #creatve writing

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resultsmeasuredineffort-blog · 6 years

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When Children Stand

The hype was real. His father had agreed to letting him go on the college tour with the other seniors. Hamza smiled and stretched his arms out wide. His phone buzzed, Asr, it notified. There’s enough time, Hamza thought to himself.

Musa and Ubaid were betting on who could slide down the banisters with the most flair, while the rest of the tour group was listening to the guide’s speech about the founder of the school. Hamza was only partially listening.

“And this is Westhaven Building, also known as The Haven. It is a common area for all students who are looking for a quiet place to study for a test. It was donated to the school by Samuel Westhaven…” the sophomore explained as Hamza sent a snapchat of the old time, gothic building. It was an ominous castle, even sporting a few gargoyles, and looked anything but like a Haven.

The students looked around, like excitable puppies, the song from Aladdin playing in their hearts. A whole new world, indeed.

“Hamza,” Musa yelled from the steps, stretching out the ending. “They’re going to leave you,” he wailed, ghostlike.

The boy in question tore his eyes from his phone, which flashed a low battery message, to see the tour group disappearing around the corner.

“I promised your mom I’d make sure you go back safe,” Musa continued yelling.

“I’m here, stop being an idiot,” Hamza jogged over.

Musa was not quite done being an idiot. He cupped his hands, even though Hamza was now two feet away and bellowed, “My boy!” He was wheezing like an old man.

“Do you need a change of the nappies?” Musa finished the part, coughing asthmatically.

Hamza smacked him behind his head, “No, but if we’re changing things—your face should be pretty up there on the list,” he grinned, all teeth.

They continued throwing jabs at each other until they caught up with their group. Hamza joked with a few people, talked with others, and was overall feeling very at home, away from home. He had known these people for the past four years, either through school or Facebook. There were also a few lingering parents, who were raptly paying attention to the guide’s every word, some were even taking notes.

While Musa and Hamza exchanged insolent comments regarding their respective dignities, Ubaid was being a bit cleverer. Ubaid’s specialty was knowing how to make people talk, in the gentlest meaning of that phrase. He didn’t even need the bat or cement shoes.

Frivolities aside, Ubaid had learned quite a bit about the school, which he had taken a shine to. He bragged about his immense wealth of knowledge to his friends.

“Just tell us already,” Musa swatted away Ubaid’s guessing game.

“Fine. Okay, so Steven told me that his sister goes to this school and she knows where to get the answer keys to all the tests.”

There was a pause. Hamza gave Ubaid a blank stare. Musa began snickering.

“What?” Ubaid asked, following a tennis match between Musa and Hamza’s face.

Hamza sighed dramatically, and just covered his face with his palm. Musa decided to educate their unworldly friend.

“We thought you had some good stuff, the way you were banging on about it. Like, I know something you don’t know,” Musa explained, pretending to wipe away a tear.

“What, and having answer keys isn’t good stuff?” Ubaid frowned, affronted by their dullness.

The three began a heated debate on what qualified as ‘good stuff’, which ended in a miffed Ubaid, who muttered, “When you morons need help with your finals, don’t come crying to me.”

The sun was shining, the foreign birds sang beautifully and the youth were carefree. School was out, this was their final summer as kids and they all wondered about the nearing initiation to adulthood. But not for too long, because updating social media was a consuming task.

The university offered a complementary lunch, and who was Hamza to refuse? They all ate sandwiches on the grassy field, under umbrella tents.

While the sun’s fierce glare was shaded, the warm nostalgia slunk beneath the umbrellas. The youth seemed to know that this was the start. This is where their bonds frayed, and ran into millions of smaller threads that connected, separated and reconnected. Infinite opportunities, riding on the wings of their individual choices.

After refueling, they began the final leg of the trek around campus, which was to end in front of the dorms. They would spend some time there, before the bus came and picked them up in the late evening.

But burdened with food, laziness swept over the youth, like fairy dust in a Shakespearean play, and there was a group vote to just spend the rest of the time on the grassy lawn. The majority voted to just chill, and so summer time lethargy ensued.

Hamza, Musa and Ubaid were sitting under the shade of a tree, each with their back to one side of the trunk, when they heard the news. Rather, they heard their phones ding and they were fed information straight from the magical highways of the internet.

“Crap, my phone died. Where did they say it was going to be?” Hamza asked, pushing up into a sitting position.

“Uh, let me check with Sarah,” Ubaid typed a question, and sent his thoughts travelling to Sarah.

A second later, they heard an urgent ding, and Musa read over Ubaid’s shoulder. Hamza already knew they were going; he didn’t hesitate.

“She says she heard it’s gonna be in front of the mall we passed by.” Hamza remembered the squat complex and did a mental calculation. It shouldn’t take them more than twenty minutes to get across campus then to the mall. Fifteen, if they ran.

“Avengers Assemble?” Musa asked, reading Hamza’s thoughts.

“Avengers Assemble,” Hamza confirmed.

“Are you guys sure? My mom always warns me about this stuff. You never know what might happen. Once—”

“Avengers,” Hamza said through gritted teeth, and Musa finished for him, “Assemble.”

Ubaid knew a lost battle when he saw one, and reluctantly stood up to join his friends. The three of them went over to discuss with their larger group of classmates. They were young, they were fearless and they knew they could change the world.

Given that Hamza’s generation was known for eating tide pods, the youth were often side eyed by their elders. So, it was an unspoken agreement to leave the adults out of their decision to counterprotest the alt-right protest.

No need to have adults protesting their need to counterprotest a protest.

Anyways, this generation was also known for the March of their Lives and so they gathered their belongings and walked off campus.

Right, they were young. Right, they sometimes made dumb choices. Right, they had a particular aversion to rules. But there was no moral quandary here. They knew racism, sexism and blind hatred were wrong. They were emerging from their techy cocoons, spreading their wings and opening their eyes on a divided world. It was as though the hateful whispers, once entangled in between the lines of society, were suddenly shouting, an orange-hued trumpet amplifying their voices in exchange for power.

If they listened to those elders who would have them quiet, then the shouting would eventually turn to a deafening silence of a society combusting, crushing the hope of a future.

The word on the vine was the alt-righters were annoyed about a recent local election; a Muslim was elected. And she had the nerve to be a Somali immigrant. And now she was trying to run Springfield? According to the alt-righters, she was bringing sharia not only to Springfield but all of America. There was talk of confederate flags and swastikas. Basically, the tiki torches were still burning.

Hamza was not having it.

It was pretty easy to find the protesters. They heard the shouting from a few streets away. Then they saw the cops, in riot gear, standing in wait for some danger.

The alt-right group was ponied up in all sorts of hate symbols. They had swastikas on their clothing and posters. The confederate flag was flapping in the wind, held aloft by several members. They shouted, roared and chanted. Hamza could hear some of them just barking, “Hu hu hu,” a sickening background music that thudded in his ears. More than a few had drinks with them.

The counterprotesters were handing out signs, posters and other symbols. Hamza and his friends grabbed some and went to stand alongside the silent group. He noticed the louder the protesters became, the quieter the activists were. The latter refused to engage in the decisive commentary, and Hamza watched in silent awe. His own face sported a tight frown, waiting for a hairpin trigger. The protesters were shouting incendiary comments and making rude animal noises at him; he stood in the front lines.

“White lives matter!” They punctuated that slogan with “You will not replace us! Terrorists and rapists should die!” And of course, the ever present, ever confounding “Lock her up!” All of their colorful slogans were accompanied by that mad-dog guttural sound.

Springfield was not a large city, and the closeness of the protests made the adrenaline flow. The students around him had faces to match his own and as the protesters began to march down toward Town Hall, the activists began to move. They barred the pathway, creating a human wall, stood, without a word, and stared down the alt-righters.

The protesters were infuriated, and began mocking the individual activists; Hamza, standing front and center, was a good target.

The cops in riot gear began to look jumpy. They saw the alt-righters begin to approach the activists, and Hamza could see a fear in their eyes. They got on the loudspeakers.

“Please clear a path. Stand away from each other,” an authoritative man said clearly.

The alt-righters looked like rottweilers being held on an invisible leash; they were dragging at it. The cops were trying to regain control of the situation, but the activists’ silence was thunderous against the petty anger of the protesters.

Hamza felt the electricity in the crowd; he knew something was about to happen. The cops must have felt the same pulse because they got back on the speakers.

“Those who are not with the Conservative Springfielders, clear the square. Leave the streets. Exit toward the south side,” came the official voice. Hamza felt his face grimace. As if.

The way he saw it, the alt-righters were the ones pushing forward. The activists didn’t make a move; the protesters looked expectantly at the cops.

Then it happened, the trigger. The man right in front of Hamza spat on him, and turned his flag, and pushed it against Hamza and the activists. There was a thrilled roar from their radius of space.

Hamza was caught by surprise, and he felt his blood boil at the oceans of blind hate in the glob of spit. He opened his mouth and almost lifted his fist.

Then, there was an acrid crack, as though the world’s ears were popping. And the smoke began to rise from the midst of their crowd. The activists scrambled as their throats began to fill with the tearing gas. Hamza cursed, coughing and blinking away tears. Being in the wave of human bodies, all struggling in different directions away from the epicenter of the attack was entirely consuming. Hamza went on autopilot as humans diffused like droplets of water on oil.

He just ran. There were no protesters, no activists. Only the struggle for preservation. It seemed as though death was imminent.

More cracks emanated from behind Hamza, but he didn’t turn to look back. How he managed to disentangle himself from the writing mass was inexplicable, especially by him. In any case, not focusing on specifics, he ran. Head down, sweat plastering his back to his shirt, he ran.

At some point, it became clear to him that the rioting noises had become a victim of distance, and only a faint whisper of it remained. And even that may have been his imagination. More so than anything else, Hamza heard his pounding feet and his trembling heart. Nervousness, mixed with being thoroughly winded, made Hamza’s head feel like smoke, spiraling towards the sun.

When he slowed down, one thing soon became extremely apparent. He was lost.

“Low key, but crap,” he came to a stop in front of a restaurant and pretended to observe one of their sample menus. Though he was bereft of energy, he was thankful the run hadn’t stolen his wits.

Unfamiliar town, a large population of racists on the loose, and a lost dark-skinned boy. The math was clear enough.

Not reading over the menu, he scanned the streets and tried to remember which direction he came from. He thought he was doing a pretty bang up job of not looking lost, when a waiter from the restaurant walked out and asked him, “Are you lost?”

He was a few years older than Hamza and startled the latter out of his covert operation.

Hamza being as quick witted as a dancer on tip toes responded, “Nope, just checking something for my mom, thanks.”

Maybe his self-observation was a bit out of focus because the waiter eyed him oddly. Nevertheless, he nodded and walked back inside. A civil war erupted within Hamza.

He felt stupid for not asking directions, but then countered by saying, well that’s exactly how people get kidnapped in the movies.

And at the same time, he knew if he couldn’t find his way back in time, he’d be stuck in this strange city; the bus would leave without him.

To which he responded, How hard can it be? I can figure this out—cities are pretty standard.

Hamza put the menu back and took a few steps. His legs were straws, barely able to support his weight, and his palms were clammy. The sun beat down on the entire world.

Hamza realized something: his youthful bluster was largely maintained by the support of his friends. Now that he was alone, he was second guessing everything. It was a stark contrast to his self image, as the underdog, stiff upper lipped, with his first to the world’s audacities.

The thought struck him like a veil being pulled from his eyes: did his friends make it out? Guilt took him. He was the one friend who, if he didn’t get a response back, he assumed tragedy. It seemed to him, in the vast matrix of possibilities, the probability of death was alarmingly high. He hoped they hadn’t gotten caught up in the mess. He hoped they were okay. He pulled out his phone, reflexively wanting to text Musa and Ubaid. Then he closed his eyes and mouthed a word. He had drained the last bits sending a snap to Aisha.

A gut sickening feeling seeped into him as he watched his wrongdoings become manifest against him. Without realizing it, he made istighfar.

“Okay, just get back and it’ll all be okay,” he whispered reassuringly.

He remembered something. During his Usain Bolt impression, he remembered cursing at a hill. During the upward climb, he was panting and mentally destroying every bit of earth under his feet.

If he could find the hill, then he would have a good vantage point of Springfield. Then all he had to do was find the castle walls of Westhaven and he would be back in time to not face the wrath of his family.

While he did his best to sort out his footsteps, Hamza realized that he would have done it again. He would still have gone to the protest and stood against those who tried to condemn the voices of minorities. Even with only a few suns beneath his belt, he had grasped a universal truth—if the weak allow their voices to be muted, then deafness becomes a justified pride.

Unfortunately for Hamza, the small city was full of buildings and offices that looked exactly the same. He passed by the same office three times, before realizing he was walking in a circle. When the waiter saw him again, Hamza had to pretend he dropped something. Quick witted indeed bro, he thought to himself. After, he avoided that street entirely.

A few attempts and several suspicious Springfielders later, Hamza was at the foot of the hill. Matchbox houses surround him, sprinkled in between the trees, each standing superior to its predecessor. He breathed a breath of thanks and began the climb. This time around, he took a break every so often. Hamza checked his phone several times, and the dead battery forced him to berate himself about his loose snapchat morals.

Finally, he was at the top and before gazing on the city, he said the basmalah. And when he turned his eyes on the city, the first thing they fell on was the angst filled establishment. Westhaven Building. He whooped, joy-rushed at finally succeeding. He breathed another thanks and made a mental map of how to get back.

Then he ran down the hill, hands flailing in the air, leaving behind a stream of laughter. The fifteen-minute trek up the hill was cancelled out by a minute of wind in his hair and wings on his back.

He danced to a stop, still chortling and looked around. He knew he had to make a right at the end of the street and saw that it was the only way he could go. The street was lined with tall, ominous trees and he heard a raven’s caw in the distance. Hamza could have sworn he felt a cold chill.

He took a breath and calmed himself. He wasn’t three years old, and he could make it across without his parents’ help. The sun was preparing to set, and rain clouds filtered the orangey glow into an eerie cast on Hamza’s face.

He began walking and told himself to stop imagining things. He was glad Musa and Ubaid were not here to watch him make a fool of himself. Sweating over the sunset. He shook his head at his childishness.

But there it was again, that noise. He hoped it was just his brain playing tricks on him, but it was getting louder. He looked around for the source but his ears failed him.

“What is that?” He asked himself, already knowing the answer. Then he shook his head. “No. No, hopefully not. Maybe it’s a –” his brain took an impromptu vacation.

He could no longer deny the doppler effect; in the narrow street, lined with dark trees, the source of the noise was beelining towards him.

He glanced down at his hands, covered in liberal wrist bands. And his shirt, dotted with pinback buttons. Not to mention his kufi, which he had decided to wear that day. And aside from all the counterprotest paraphernalia, the worse case against him was his dark skin. There was no denying what Hamza stood for. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

The large crowd was doing their rumbling chant, interjecting it with the occasional bark. “You will not replace us,” he heard their chant. “Hu hu hu,” was the replying chorus.

The group was at the end of the street, having just turned the corner and began to slither towards him—a depraved snake made of posters, swastikas and confederate flags.

Hamza looked around and saw his one man against their hundred. They blocked out everything else like a wave of hatred over his world. Hamza felt a calm wash over him.

He coolly estimated his options. He could outrun them; there was a direct correlation between their racism and their obesity. But something in his chest stopped him from running back up that hill. Firstly, he was sure they had seen him—he had been walking toward them. And more powerfully, he refused to be a coward.

A thought occurred to him: if this was his day to die, then there was no two ways about it. If God was going to take his soul today, then Hamza was going out standing up for what was right. The cold directness of his decision shook a more emotional part of his heart, but it was drowned out by the chanting. Hamza began walking towards them, not making a sound. He was fully prepared to meet, in the best case, hospitalization. He said the name of God and stepped.

Their footsteps ate away at the distance and before he knew it, Hamza was inches away from the man who had spit in his face. He smelled like alcohol. Their deep warbling was deafening in his ears, pounding at him in waves. Hamza stared forward, not meeting any eyes, and still stepped.

And the crowd parted. Not one at a time, but simultaneously as though the whole thing was rehearsed. Or as though they were being forced to walk around him. They created this narrow path for him, a stone making its merry way along a river.

Hamza hid the astonishment that melted into paranoia. They’re going to close in around me, and swarm, he thought. He formulated the ways they would attack him. With their beer bottles, he supposed. Maybe a hate flag to the head? Hamza’s heart was the eye of the storm, as he stepped through tearing ignorance. He heard their rude comments and their curses, but not once did they acknowledge him.

He felt the impulsive nature of youthhood to grab one of them and ask, “Can you see me?” Biting his tongue, he kept walking, invisible.

The entire lot of them walked around him, regrouping once they had passed him. When Hamza made it out on the other side, he inspected his body looking for the wounds. Nothing. He stopped walking and turned back toward the still chanting crowd.

Not one turned to look back at him. Hamza’s face broke into a stupid grin as he turned the corner, looked up at the sky, and felt a newness in his chest. He ran the rest of the way back to Musa and Ubaid.

#hamza #youth #islam #protest #activism #story time #creatve writing #stand up for what's right #writers #humans against hate #stand up #muslim writer #muslim #fiction #youth in america #america #stories

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micaiah-the-vampire-slayer · 6 years

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On the Trail: Part 3

Micaiah didn’t like leaving the fighter behind. That being said, it was true that the spell casters of the group would need their rest. She would need hers eventually. She was more used to sleeping during the day, but even then, she just needed four hours to get herself energized again.

It was dark in the woods, something she had become accustom to. It didn’t take long to find the tracks of the caravan and the large foot prints and smaller ones. Having the tracks down now, it was time to go.

Herself, Tigger, Remy, Jansaadi, and Poppy the halfling started out into the darkness. Being a Druid, she felt no discomfort with the elements. She and they were one, in a way. The others didn’t seem to be having trouble either. It wasn’t the hottest, or the most humid it could be.

Micaiah had decided against riding Tigger. She wasn’t sure if it was due to the fact the others weren’t riding, or because she was worried about tiring the tiger now that she felt she had to prove her usefulness. Jansaadi killed a Hill Giant, albeit one already injured, with one single arrow. Micaiah had been hunting vampires for, basically, her entire life. What if now she messed up?

Worse yet, she supposed she had to eventually teach these people how to kill vampires. Otherwise, they were going to have a rough time as they went on through the journey.

She gave Tigger a pet on the shoulder. Her mind was swimming with responsibilities to this group. Even more, her longevity in it. Would it just be this one mission, or should she stick around? After everything that had happened, she was never comfortable with people the same way. Tigger turned to her, lowering his head to butt it into her shoulder.

There wasn’t much on the way of talking, everyone was watching the road, tracking.

At least until the sounds started. The sound of maybe a tree being struck down reverberated. Micaiah looked around, listening for a moment. The sounds, at least, were moving away from them. If they stayed on the trail, rather than rushing off into the forest, they’d likely be just...

Remy disappeared before she could even finish her thought. She stared after him as he continued, but wasn’t about to go after him. She was more worried about finding the caravan.

Granted, that was before a few moments had passed, and his yell was heard. She glowered into the darkness. Whatever this fool had done was going to cost them time, precious time they didn’t have to waste. She glanced back at the road, where Tigger had continued down.

Micaiah made her decision as Jansaadi took off into the woods. Begrudgingly, Micaiah followed his yell.

They came upon a statue, but in the darkness, it was hard to figure out who it was, at least it would have been had it not been for his hat, the one he had hung on his... well, it would be something Micaiah would never touch.

She saw the shadow heading for Remy’s statue. Arrows bombarded it. Jansaadi stood, glaring down at it. I could tell, even with our low light, she was having a tough time aiming. Micaiah grabbed a stone from the ground, and, when it started glowing, she threw it out there, landing at Remy’s feet. The light illuminated the area, showing exactly where the two, Abyssal Basilisk were located, moving towards Remy.

Tigger rushed forward his claws sinking deep, thrashing the Basilisk, decimating it. One down. The group turned towards the other, and started attacking, bows, Micaiah slung rocks that became boulders. Tigger charged again. An arrow pierced the basilisk. This time, it wasn’t from Jansaadi, but Poppy. Micaiah turned back to the statue,shaking her head. “I can’t fix this. I mean, I could turn him to lava?”

“Let’s not turn my husband into lava.” Jansaadi groaned, and shook her head. “I’ll head back. We have a want that can help.”

Micaiah simply nodded. How could this happen? What was she supposed to do? Did she wait, and give the caravan more time to move. She looked where the trail had lead them as Jansaadi disappeared. She shook her head and looked down at Tigger. This couldn’t get any worse.

That was when she noticed Poppy trying to get up on the statue. Not wanting damage done to him that would slow them down further, she nodded at Tigger, who moved over, letting the small being stand on him. That’s when she realized what she was doing, writing Idiot on his head. Raising an eyebrow, Micaiah said nothing. As the moments continued to move, her boredom and need to move on were overcoming her.

She turned, and started defacing his statue as well. By the time Jansaadi got back, penises with wings for the ball sacks decorated his face and body. Idiot was written across his forehead, compensation over his Aphrodite’s Saddle. Kick me stood out over his bum.

Micaiah couldn’t help the guilty smile. She had to admit it was fun to do that, though now the consequences of her actions stared back at her when Jansaadi got back with the wand. He’d delayed with his running off alone into the woods.

#dungeons and dragons #d&d #roleplay #rp #original character #tigger the tiger #writing #my writing #creatve writing

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