The Battle For Blogland Chapter 2: The Calm of the Storm

Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgyM8edUIQI

'Lost Control' by Grinspoon

2

THE CALM OF THE STORM

Was it raining? No. Not yet. Unfortunately for us though, we were far too tense to appreciate the last few days we’d see daylight and the outside that wasn’t being completely saturated with more and more rain. It didn’t matter for me, I suppose. Despite the fact that I enjoy the rain, there was also the point that I was already drenched to the bone, having just emerged from the lake moments ago along with Eve, Star and Flame.

Either way, it wasn’t raining. Despite this, though, the scene seemed to have darkened significantly in the few moments that had elapsed and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Not that anyone noticed. It wasn’t hiding behind a cloud, the sky of which was absolutely free of their presence that day, nor sheltering behind the mountain boundaries of Blogland in the distance. The rays that sped down toward us from the seemingly invisible sun somehow evaporated long before they reached us as though a barrier brought by the presence of the Hollow Men had been put up against them, determined to create a gloomy scene. If it was a gloomy scene that they wanted, I can say that they certainly got what they had been looking for.

Frantically, I look around for places we could retreat to, avoid having to battle; to save bloodshed, possibly lives. There was the forest, but Hollow Men surrounded that. The only other place I knew of was the Snowy Mountains, but the Hollow Men also had those surrounded. The only direction we could really go if we were to retreat would be backwards, away from the Hollow Men. But none of us had ever explored that part of Blogland. We had always been so focused on this; what we called the Central which consisted of the lake in the dead centre, the few scattered trees that were planted a bit back from it that contained Sparky’s tree-house and what was once mine, now Eve’s. The forest simply sat to the far west of the lake while the cliff abruptly hung in existence to the east. It didn’t make sense to call it the Central, though. None of us really had any idea how large Blogland was or where it ended. If it ended.

Going backwards into unexplored territory could be dangerous. There could be barren wastelands with no water. There could be desolated jungles with predators intent on killing us. And we weren’t exactly in a position to obtain supplies for different terrain. It seemed we were going to have to take the risk and back off a bit anyway, though. This huge army of Hollow Men would either end up killing us all brutally or result in suffocating us in their putrid gasses that was contained inside their bodies.

And then the first Hollow Man took its step towards us after the short pause following their entry. At once us up the front tensed. Eve snarled at the Hollow Man who didn’t seem to care in the slightest. There was a flash, a fast and vicious swipe that blurred from Eve’s arm. The next second, the papery mass had collapsed in a heap as a putrid gas was released over the scene and she reeled back at the smell. There was a slight pause, then, in unison, the rest of the Hollow Men quickly begun to advance closer again.

It would be impossible to fight them all, that much was clear now. I think the other three up the front with me had realised this by that point because all four of us stepped back as one as the Hollow Men stepped forwards. They didn’t stop, we didn’t stop. The others at the back were immobile, either waiting for us to tell them to attack or waiting for the moment to strike I didn’t know. It was when Sparky misjudged her footing and stumbled backwards over a ditch in the ground that the Hollow Man in the lead loomed over her. Before she could even raise her Makhaira, her loyal weapon, two arrows came flying from behind us and penetrated the skin of the Hollow Man. The army clumsily came to another halt as the Hollow Man staggered back and deflated. Each individual stopped in their tracks at different times as though a stun was taking a toll on their already limited movements.  We, however, did not stop moving and had now backed up far enough to join Lavender, Nixion, Lynxia and Star after Flame had quickly dragged his wife up off the ground again.

Two Hollow Men had already fallen…

And then they moved again, renewed with determination and breaking the solidifying silence with the heavy thuds of their footsteps on Blogland soil. We stood our ground as they drew ever closer, only delaying the inevitable. I don’t know why we didn’t run when we had the chance. Maybe it was the feeling of not wanting to flee before already having tried to fight, to at least attempt defending what was ours before retreating away. And then they were close enough.

Two more arrows struck Hollow Men in the first wave before quickly collapsing. Two more took their place instantaneously as the gas rose from the papery skin on the ground. Twin coils of ink slammed across the army as Flame hurled two fireballs into the mass of papery figures. As many fell at once, more simply took their place in formation, still advancing ever slowly closer. The long-rangers had had their turn. Now it was time for the close-range attackers to defend. Sparky’s Makhaira slashed down on three Hollow Men consecutively as Nixion blurred to the front, his machete slicing through Hollow Men with ease. I ducked down under a fist that came lumbering out of nowhere and came up with my dagger stabbing through a papery stomach which quickly deflated and collapsed. Eve launched herself forwards, her arms flying madly about, nails scratching at the Hollow Men, the attacks not as effective as the blades currently in use, but still demolishing enemy after enemy in quick succession.

More and more arrows sped into the huge army of Hollow Men, striking dead on in chests or heads sending more gas billowing relentlessly into the air. Huge waves of shadows slammed down onto the enemies while fireballs poured into the Hollow Men, large formations of ink accompanying them as well. All too soon we were all suffocating in the putrid gasses that we had released into the air ourselves.

I staggered back, gasping for clean air along with everyone else.

“Go!” someone yelled. I think it was Flame, but I can’t remember. Partially because I was finding it hard to string thoughts together at that point. But it worked. We had tried, done our defending over Central. Now it was time to go. We could see that we were far stronger than the Hollow Men and would easily have annihilated them from existence if only the gasses weren’t released from their bodies. The attacks ceased from behind and now everyone but Nixion and Lynxia were taking flight.

I remember Lynxia pleading with Nixion to come through her choking and gasping. For a moment he did nothing but savagely tear his machete through another head of a Hollow Man, but then he heard the plea in her voice and he reluctantly abandoned the battle and joined the retreat.

Our staggering had to adapt, and quickly. Soon enough, our movement did form some sort of steady pace and the staggering transformed into a quick jog that was slowly upped to a run as the air we breathed in became slowly less gas-infested.

We heard the thousands of Hollow Men footsteps crashing loudly from behind, but we couldn’t do anything about that now.

Running was the only thing that mattered.

We had to find somewhere safe to be.

To do that, we needed to get away from the Hollow Men.

To do that, we needed to run.

Keep running.

Don’t stop.

And we didn’t.