The girl to save them all (CLOSED)

[slow death (DELETED 13799)]

**OOC: This is open, but it is not pointless. There is a plot to follow and an end goal in mind, the how of getting there is what will be Role Played. If you need to know the end goal before you decide to join, please message me, but please keep it to yourself so as to not give it away to those that might enjoy reading this as it progresses. Also, I am new to this particular forum, so I am learning as I go.**

The wind howled through the deep dark mountain pass like long-forgotten hoards of spectral spirits. It whipped and ragged against the razor-sharp rocky spires of stone which jutted toward the sky as if the stones themselves sought to escape the confining chains of gravity, leaving the earth behind to join their brothers and sisters in the endless vastness of space as great planets… The battle of elements was fierce, the wind buffeted like a giant fist and tore at the mountain which had stood for eternity, an occasional rock or bolder sounded like a cannon blast as they smashed into the ground far below, the only damage the hurricane-strength wind was able to cause... The noise was almost deafening as earth and wind tried to assert dominance over each other…

As with any battle, there must always be a winner and also a loser, this was no different… The mighty wind was slowly losing, lessening in its vicious attack on a mountain whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time… The mountain had faced countless onslaughts from wind, fire, and water… Yet still, it stood as a testimony of the ability to overcome all adversity with nothing more than simple steadfastness and time… Stand long enough and even the hardiest, often fool hardly, aggressors will falter, stumble, and fail… The wind was going to loose, and with one final charge, one last vain attempt, the wind crashed with a force so hard it made the mountain shake to its very foundation… Rocks, gravel, and boulders the size of houses vibrated lose and raced headlong down the face of the mountain, filling the deep, dark, and worn pass below, forever changing the outward appearance of a timeless creation of nature… Still, the mountain stood, and the wind lessened as to nothing more than a stiff breeze, one final howl of defeat as it blew through the rubble-strewn pass…

Thus far, black clouds like great wings of demons spit forth from hell, had covered the moon… Since the mountain had forced the wind to abandon its attack and seek a higher course, it pushed the blackness away with the quickness of a serpent seeking a meal, and the glaring white glow of a full moon bathed the blocked mountain pass in a harsh light… Shadows jumped into being as if they had been given birth to by the mountain in celebration of its victory over the elements… Creatures of the night ventured from hiding, noses twitched as their animal senses tested the breeze for any signs of danger, either from bigger creatures or from some sudden return of the wind which would toss them from the rocks and smash them to the pass below… Something screeched, its cry echoed off the stones and was swallowed by the night, a sure signal that one of the animals was not as careful as it should have been… Such is the dance of life and death…

Moonlight blanketed the face of the mountain, un-weathered rock and fresh cracks, damage caused by the wind, stood out in stark contrast to the weathered stone like new scares on tanned skin… A lone wolf bound from rock to rock in search of its next meal… Suddenly it paused in front of a new opening in the mountain, previously covered by one of the large boulders, now shattered, which lay somewhere in the pass below, the hair on the wolf’s neck ridged up and bristled like crude spikes as it attempted to appear larger to some unseen, yet sensed danger… Its lips curled, exposing rows of bright white pointed teeth and a low rumble escaped from deep within its chest as its beep golden eyes tried to pierce the pitch-black cave that even the moonlight seemed afraid to enter… The wolf crouched low to the ground as if ready to spring into action…



I could feel the rainless storm, I had felt all the attacks nature threw at the mountain over the last few years, but my sleep remained undisturbed, until now… Rock spit, shattered, and the boulder that had blocked the opening to my private self-imposed prison, slipped and bounced away as the wind gave its final blow… The opening was now exposed to the world… Sitting up from the smooth cold gray featureless slab that had been my bed for these past years and opening my eyes, I could see the darkness move away, replaced by the light of a full moon, animal sounds filtered into the cave, sounds and smells I had all but forgotten flooded back… I closed my eyes, trying to adjust to the long-absent sensations… My skin crawled as if covered in millions of insects as nerves that had been devoid of stimulation came awake… The sounds from outside were ringing in my head threatening to split my skull, I pressed my hands over my ears, cupping my head and trying to keep the pounding in my brain from causing it to spill out onto the cave floor… Turning my mind inward and slowly absorbed the, once absent, outside influences one at a time until I was in control of myself once again… I don’t know how long I had to sit like that, eyes closed, hands over my ears, and my mind nothing more than a confused jumble of thoughts and fuzzy noises, but eventually a sense of normalcy returned…

I heard the low rumbling growl through my hand covered ears and knew it had to be very close… Opening my eyes I turned toward the sound, my vision of the outside world was assisted by the moon while the animal outside was hampered by the darkness inside the cave, deep shadows, and blackness, similar to the effect of tinted windows on automobiles… My throat felt suddenly very parched as if I had spent days in a desert without the benefit of water, swallowing only made it worse, like I had pored sand down my throat… I could almost feel the warmth emanating from the wolf crouching just outside… Too fast for the wolf to react I removed my hands from my head, pushed off the stone bed, and launched myself into the moonlight… I could feel its bones break like dried twigs, the fur felt ruff and coarse in my hands as my fingers dug into the warm flesh beneath, snapping more bones and crushing tendons… A startled yelp was the only sound the animal was able to make as its body left the ground and my teeth tore open its neck in a shower of fine red mist… Holding the big animal aloft I sated my need to wet my parched throat as I drained every last drop of the salty life give substance it held inside its veins, the heart slowed and finally ceased to beat… Without a second thought, I released my hold and watched as the lifeless body followed the path of the boulder that had kept me locked inside all these years… I didn’t wait to see where it finally came to rest, it mattered not anyway, turning toward the pass’s entrance I lighted from one rock to the next as if I was a mountain goat born to live in the rocky mountains…

It was a long travel to reach my intended destination… Several human bodies were the only testimony of my silent passage across the midnight landscape… I didn’t know what to expect when I got there, who I would find, who would become friend or foe, and I didn’t care, I knew what I had to do and nothing would stand in my way…

Nothing would stop me…

Hours later I stood under an old wooden sign which marked a place few knew about and even fewer would dare to go… Harper Rock...




The outer limits, the dark forest which encompassed the city had always been my favorite playground in the past… The trees were twisted and deformed, closely packed in places as if they huddled together in safety from the darkness… Gnarled roots broke through the ground in various places, making traveling off the well-worn paths that crisscrossed like a giant spider web, dangerous and treacherous… Thick brush with sharp thorns surrounded the base of every tree, it was nature's form of natural razor wire… Anyone attempting to climb the ghastly monstrosities that passed as trees would be torn to ribbons by the underbrush long before they could gain purchase on the sandpaper-like bark that covered them… These conditions made for prime hunting grounds…

The old hand-carved sign was weathered and beaten, the dried wood split, cracked, and covered in black blotches of something that may have once been paint, the only indication which showed its age… Two sets of heavy rusted logging chains attached the sign from the top to an inverted pipe “L” brace, the end of which was cemented deep in the ground… Dents, dings, holes of various shapes and sizes covered the degraded pipe as it jutted from the soil at a strange angle like, at some point in time, someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to remove it from its place of rest… The wind stirred causing the trees to groan in protest as their limbs rubbed against each other high overhead, leaves rustled like hushed voices… The old wooden sign swayed slightly adding the quiet squeaking of the supporting chains, blending with the groaning and rustling of the forest, it was almost as if they were all welcoming me… Or warning me away… Whichever the case was, I paid it no heed…

The city was laid out before me like some child’s plaything… Buildings that were as old as time stood side by side with buildings that look to have been build just yesterday… The only real planning, to a city that seemed to shift and change at random, were the city streets which were arrow straight without a curve to be found… Lights from various windows gave off a golden yellow glow, breaking the darkness in small pools of light… This city never slept… By day the human inhabitants went about their meaningless little lives, scampering around like so many rats in a colossal maze, trying hard to make their short lives just a little less pointless… They all dreamed of greatness, few worked to obtain it, and fewer still actually acquired it… In the end, though, they all met the same fate, death… I could only guess that this must have been what coined the phrase “rat race”…

I had to wonder where they got their overinflated sense of superiority, they thought themselves to be the top of the food chain and as such thought, they were untouchable, almost god-like… Every night the same cycle repeated itself, the folly of their thinking became painfully aware, every night some unlucky soul got to meet something that truly was above it… They were not the top of the food chain, I was… They realized this as their life drained from them to curb an appetite that could only have been created in the deepest pits of hell by the devil himself… If there were such a thing as angels and demons, our kind would be the closest thing to a walking demon that the earth would ever experience… We physically had to die, then we were spat back out of hell as walking, talking, death and destruction, and humans were our food… I was hungry… Time to let the air out of someone’s “over-inflated sense of superiority”… It was time to eat… My eyes scanned the city before me, searching for the perfect plaything, the perfect meal of pain and fear…

Humans scampered about like insects, moving from one island of light to the next, hurrying to cross the dark patches and shadows, they didn’t tarry long before scurrying off to the next patch of brightness as they made their way up and down the street… One human was as good as the next, but I was always after something sporting, something that would prove to be entertaining… A play toy… After several minutes I spied something I thought would present a challenge… A group of men stood together on a corner at the edge of a pool of light, voices hushed in low tones, enough so that even my enhanced hearing could only make out the occasional word, and not enough to follow the conversation… I didn’t care what they were talking about, I was more interested in the chain of command I was observing…

Six men total, all of them looking to one man as some sort of leader of the group… The man was tall for a human, easily over six foot, with a broad chest and well-muscled arms that strained to rip out of his navy blue sports coat he could easily weigh two hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds… The man was glaring around the group, pointing fingers at certain ones and snarling like an animal as he talked to them… No one spoke while he was speaking, several heads of the other men were hung low like errant school children being scolded by their teacher…

I moved slowly from beneath the sign… To anyone watching it would appear as if the shadow of the sign simply split into two parts, one of which then began to drift toward the city… A black woolen cloak draped my frame, covering me from head to toe, the lower part was dingy from where it brushed across the ground… There were no bobbles or trinkets attached that might cause something to reflect in the moonlight, the clasps which held the cloak closed down the front were a deep dark blackened wood and simple stained leather loops… I didn’t care about fashion, I didn’t care about appearance, I cared about functionality, I cared that if I were standing in the dark I would appear to be nothing more than a darker section of the darkness, unobserved and uncared about… I would attract no attention…

Unlike the humans that moved from one point of the lighted area to another, I moved from one section of darkness to another… Drifting, silently as the fog, my soft leather boots made not a whisper against the hard gray concrete sidewalk as I moved down the street toward the group of men… I took my time, making no sudden movements that would draw the eyes, and thus, the attention of them… Humans were like animals, movement triggered something in their brains causing an unconscious action to look in the direction of any movement… They couldn’t help it any more than a lion could help it… A hundred yards… Seventy-five yards… Fifty yards… Still, no indication from the men that they were about to meet their doom, they were so engrossed in their conversation that I probably could have run right up to them before they even noticed they weren’t alone… Twenty-five yards…

I didn’t want to kill them all at once… That wasn’t the game… I wanted to hunt, terrify, and torment them, but the big man was already doing that… I decided that he would be my pray… I had moved close enough, bringing me next to the building they were standing on the corner of… It was a short two-story building made of bright fire-hardened red bricks, which were laid out in perfect rows, separated by a thin white line of mortar… Windows were set at even intervals about ten feet apart, outlined in chiseled rock, giving them a defined look as if they had been put in after all the bricks were in place, added as an afterthought… The top of the building was outlined in the same chiseled rocks as the windows and jutted out several inches out from the flat wall, it made a lip that ran the full circumference of the building… Bending my knees slightly I sprang straight up to catch the fire escape ladder and moved up the side of the building, my hand catching hold on the cold chiseled rocks as I swung myself over the ledge to the long flat rooftop… Glancing from the top to the group below I watched as they all turned in unison toward the spot I had just vacated a moment before… Their conversation halted in that instant as all the men scanned the area for whatever had just caught their eyes…

I remain motionless on the rooftop, ready to step back out of sight in case one of them decided to look up, but it proved to be unnecessary… The big man snapped his fingers, regaining the attention of his fellows… “Pay attention! There’s nothing there! You fools are jumping at damn shadows.” He hissed in a low voice… He may be chastising them for being jumpy but he wasn’t taking any chances that they might be right, he certainly didn’t want anyone outside his group to hear what he was saying and as such was speaking even lower than he had been… It didn’t matter how low he talked now, I was close enough to hear it all…

“If we don’t find her soon, the boss is going to want someone’s head on a stick. I for one will not be that someone, so I leave it up to you guys to figure out which one wants to explain to him that you can find one girl.” The big man glared around the silent group as they exchanged worried glances at each other… Some of them shifted their weight from foot to foot as if they wanted nothing more in the world than to take off running and never stop… “We have till morning.” He said, “Look under every friken rock, in every hole, and behind every trash can if you have to. Just find her.” The man pointed a finger around the group, “Or so help me God I will make sure every last one of you is standing there when I tell the boss that YOU GUYS couldn’t handle one simple task.”

Low murmurs escaped the group as real fear set in and they imagined all the things the boss would do to them for their failure… I was liking this ‘boss'… “WHAT ARE YOU STANDING AROUND FOR? MOVE!” He yelled. Like the bang of a starting gun at the track, all five men took off running in different directions, a couple of the less coordinated tripped over their own feet and almost fell in their need to get as far away as fast as they could before the big man changed his mind and hauled one of them off to the boss anyway, just to make a point… There wasn’t a question, I knew the driving force of fear, these men would find what they were after or they would kill themselves trying because if they failed, the fate they had to look forward to was one worse than death… I almost laughed at the thought as I stood looking down on the big guy…

“Time for you to taste what it is to know fear…”

I whispered down to him, but it went unheard… A ringing erupted from inside his breast pocket, reaching in the big man pulled out a shiny silver object, it looked so small and fragile in his oversized meaty hands, with a flick of his wrist he unfolded the phone… Light from multicolored display washed across his face as he placed it to his ear, his shoulders slumped down and I knew that he was not overly excited about whomever the caller was…

“Hello.” he stuttered, after a brief pause, he continued, “Yes sir, I found them all and just got done explaining the situation to them. They’re doubling their efforts.” another pause, the big man raised his other hand to his forehead and began a gentle massage to try and relieve some of the tension he must be feeling at the conversation. “No sir, we WILL find her, that won't be necessary.” His fingers ran backward through his short black hair, he reached out and placed it on the wall as his head leaned forward to stare at the ground. “Yes sir. We’ll get her back. You have nothing to worry about sir. I promise you.” With a push, he stood up straight, almost renewed. “Thank you, sir. I’ll call you as soon as we find her and let you know. Thank you again, sir.” He pushed the phone closed with his thumb and replaced it in his pocket… With one final look around he headed off down the street…

“Interesting, very interesting…”

I said to myself… Maybe this girl they wanted could prove useful… Someone was going through a lot of trouble to find her. Normally the affairs of humans did not interest me in the least, but it must take something incredibly drastic to scare the man below me, and that was something I wanted to see…

With one short jump, I covered the span between buildings, moving a little faster than the man below I dropped into the alley a few yards away from where the big man would pass, and I waited… The alley sat between two buildings, one being only a couple stories high, the other being much taller than that… The stench of old trash, garbage, and maybe a dead cat or two, were overwhelming… The alley floor tapered to the middle, down which, a steady flow of rancid greenish water flowed carrying chunks of stuff before it dumped into a sewer grate at the street… An old iron fire escape was bolted to the wall of the taller building, but it looked as if had never been used… A quick scan of it told me that using it would probably be unsafe, burning to death might be a better choice rather than falling from it when it came crashing down... Most of the brackets that attached it to the building were rusted through, those that weren’t were barely holding on… I turned my attention back to the approaching man…

It only took a few seconds, I could hear his breathing, the beating of his heart against his rib cage, the swishing noise made by his pant legs as they brushed against each other with every step, and the soft thudding of his shoes against the concrete as he drew nearer… I didn’t need the element of surprise, but I liked the effect it had on the unsuspecting… Like a serpent strike my hand snaked out from the darkness as the man pulled even with the entrance to the ally, my fingers latched on the front of his suit coat and I could feel its fine silk crumple in my grasp as I jerked him toward the darkness… Turning quickly I launched him backward sending him flying several feet, deeper into the alley and its welcoming blackness… I watched as his short flying lesson was cut short by a big green dumpster…

With a loud crash, the big man smashed into it, sending the dumpster skidding sideways, almost before it stopped sliding the man was on his feet, and his eyes locked on me… I didn’t move, I didn’t need to move, he would come to me…

“You know who I am?” He asked, his voice dripping with anger and rage. “You know what I’m gonna do to you?” his eyes left me and scanned the alley as if looking for something or someone, with a snort he looked down at the front of his suit coat, using his hands to smooth it out he then turned his attention back to me, pulling his shoulders back he stood to his full height… “You must be retarded to come at me alone. I’m fix’n to put a hurt on you boy.” he spat the last word as if it was meant to be an insult…

We stood facing each other…

(Closed due to a lack of interest)