Open Hunted ..

[Kumori Shourai]

The fever of dusk had slowly crept in, the brown pathway darkening with each passing moment of time. The shadow of night that had consumed the light day in a furious hunger seen each night, in an endless cycle of night and day. The pathway had wound its way through the small village off in the distance;

… only distinction between village and field -- a broken cobblestone path lining the village enterance, that had wound it's way through the center of this dilapidated village, northward to a river at the village center and beyond.

A river ran through the center of town under a collapsing bridge in a westward-ly direction. The bridge itself having seen many a traveler in it's prime, now pleading for a swift end, with each creek of pain caused by the strong gusts of wind.

He stood silently at the south end of this abandoned village's border where dirt met cobblestone, the wind howling fiercely; his tattered and torn hooded cloak wrapped around him, rippled in the breeze, only a faint crimson glow from under his tattered hood could be seen as he gazed, in quiet contemplation, at the ominous dark clouds above.

Blood ran down his right leg onto the ground pooling at his feet -- After quite some time he fell to one knee, his sword had slammed down point first into the ground, having gripped the handle tightly with his bloodied right hand, using the sword as a crutch, blood ran down the handle of the sword to the ground. He knelt catching his breath.

 

[=Nightshade=]

The river’s icy fingers gripped her body, almost like the hands of Death himself. The raging current crashed over her, sweeping her under, choking every last breath from her body. The rocks beneath her seemed to reach up to pummel her, and the banks were steep and crumbling. With the freezing rasp of Death practically breathing down her neck, the young woman held onto the last remaining shreds of her resolve, and caught hold of a sapling on the bank even as the water tried to tear her viciously from any chance at life that still remained.

She dragged herself out of the water, numb from cold and half-delirious from pain. The river had done more damage to her than her pursuers, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t managed to take something precious; deep gashes from a clawed gauntlet had reduced her right eye and cheek to shreds. One hand clutched at her face, trying desperately to stop the bleeding, or at least slow its progress. Somehow, deep in the recesses of her mind, she managed to pop her left shoulder into place and stumble to her feet, using her bow as a support.

A quick inventory of what remained of her supplies yielded more pain than provisions. She had about twenty-five broken arrows, which she discarded, and only about three that hadn’t snapped or been lost in the river. The only other things that remained were her small dagger and a soggy half-roll of bandages. She would have to restock at the nearest town.

Bloody handprints were left on her bow as she readjusted her grip and limped towards the town, dripping blood and water behind her. One working eye should be more than enough to get her there in one piece. She flipped her hood over her head, covering the mangled mess of her face as well as her remaining amber eye, and headed off.

 

[E.K.A.N.S.]

"There's a path that winds through a small village in the distance, another made of broken cobblestone lining the entrance, a river in the center, a bridge pleading for a swift end... Okay, I'll give the bridge a teary face and draw it on its knees then. The fever of dusk creeps in... Okay, I'll draw the horizon sneezing. Wait, do bridges even have knees?! And do horizons sneeze?! Ah, who cares. It's an abstract piece!"

Rylen was 18 years old with light green eyes and sandy blonde hair. There wasn't really anything striking about him. He looked like an ordinary village boy in his loosely woven flax shirt, brown pants and moccasins. He might have played the part, too, were his face not splattered with paint and colored with passion. The excitement of wandering into the danger zone for a third time had him grinning like a madman, beating the canvas before him extra hard with a brush and making up for all the days he'd stared at it blankly. The compulsive artist had grown bored of the quiet rural scenes in the safety of his nation's borders and ventured out.

Places like this—the unpredictable no-man's-land between warring powers and a river that seemed to fight its own battles, bounding over rocks and twisting past the ghost town—brought out his creative energy. The stream didn't let up as its surroundings quieted, oblivious to the human conflicts that had reduced the settlement and proceeding as loudly as it always had. That was a kind of freedom humans didn't have; the spies and bandits tread carefully when they crossed these lands.

But Rylen wasn't most people. He didn't seem to notice as night and all its accompanying dangers approached. The world around him was as familiar as his own room, and someone had merely dimmed the lights. He was dreaming awake and realizing his vision on the slab he faced.

"The river's icy fingers gripped her body... What a pervert!" he exclaimed and painted a girl in the clutches of a giant hand. "Almost like Death himself, eh? Okay, lemme draw a scythe-wielding skeleton in the stream real quick. And he's breathing down on her neck with a freezing rasp! Hella creepy! A young woman holding onto the last remaining shreds of her resolve?!"

He spelled the word "R-E-S-O-L-V-E" with torn, letter-shaped pieces of clothing on the water's surface.

"...Okay, this picture's starting to look like some kind of sexual assault. I should stop. Who did I even paint just now?"

Rylen interpreted his environment in strange ways when he was in the zone, and hardly paid attention to the things that mattered. An injured woman could walk right by him and he'd wonder how his brush could bring her to life, overlooking her very real brush with death and syncing its movements with the dripping of her blood. Only when he could follow it no more did he realize the state she was in.

"HEY!!! Are you all right? You're bleeding everywhere!" Rylen shouted and ran over, tool still in hand. He had plenty of energy to spare after an inspired art session, but not enough brains. She could've been a bandit, an assassin, an enemy spy, or any other sort of bad news. But the man was lost in space and indifferent to the politics of earth.