The Battle For Blogland - Chapter 11: Drowning In Nothing

Happy World Book Day to you all!
And as it turns out - I actually have writing for you all. Yes, writing. You all remember that thing, right? Something that I've not done in far too long? Yep, that.
Also, because Blogger is stupid, it won't let me adjust the highlight around the chapter text. Sorry about that, I can't do anything. I could for every other post, but it's not letting me this time. Oh well. (Scratch that - I got it working.)
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Theme: "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica (feat. Lacey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JFdcBULC2Q
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11

DROWNING IN NOTHING

The first thing to hit us was shock, as everything around us slowed. It slowed in the sense that the whole scene around us dimmed in comparison to what had happened to Lynxia, but the tide of Hollow Men and zombies had also actually paused for a brief moment to observe the happening. Then the disbelief rushed in with a flat refusal to accept it. But the facts of the matter could not go on ignored.

Lynxia’s eyes dimmed and her body began to slump. But within a few seconds of the decaying undead pulling it’s rotting teeth out of her neck, Lynxia had already stood upright again. Her eyes were bloodshot, despite them being fine a few moments previously. And these bloodshot eyes roamed over each of us, and she let out a snarl as the attack resumed.

She was gone. She hadn’t even tasted flesh, but she was gone. The infection had taken effect faster than that any of us had actually heard of before. We still don’t know how her nervous system had altered itself to suit that of the other shambling bloodthirsty creatures without the trigger of the taste of flesh. And yet it happened, which only put a further emphasis on the theory that every single creature here existed only for the sole purpose of taking our lives.

The renewed onslaught of the Hollow Men and the undead wrenched us back into wholesome, cruel reality; the reality that took place in the middle of our failed attempt to take back Central. The reality where zombies and Hollow Men wreaked havoc upon us from all sides and it was now more than ever that we crumpled under the force of their attacks.

Had we been grouped together at this point, perhaps there would have been a chance to last a little longer. Had we been even somewhat grouped, we would have been able to rely on each other to an extent and fend of the swarms of enemies on all sides together – possibly even to some effect. But we weren’t bunched together. Not even remotely. We were all spread out a good distance apart and separated by huge masses of enemies blocking us off and isolating us. And the fact that we were all completely exhausted, now added in with the event that had just transpired with Lynxia ended up meaning that we all stood no chance against any of the Hollow Men and zombies. So even though weapons were drawn and magic was summoned and determination flared upwards, it was no use. Flimsy attacks quickly switched to flimsy defensives and for a short time, our attention was drawn away from Lynxia and her condition. While previously it had been us slowly and painfully hacking away at the cancer, the situations had reversed now, and we were backing up and backing away after a ridiculously short time spent resisting retreat.

Heavy fists beat us, sharp nails clawed at us and the sounds of snarling and heavy footsteps reverberated everywhere making everything become ten times worse. After a minute or so, my ears we ringing, the volume of which continued to rise, higher and higher until it faded into the background and made everything noiseless. My eyes stung, my head throbbed, every part of me ached and the only reason I was still upright was because it became easier to stand than it was to collapse.

It had started to rain at some point previously. I’m not sure when, and I’m not sure when I became aware of it, but soon enough we were all soaked in a mixture of sweat, water and blood. And then we were all grouped together again, bunched in and fending at different angles while being forced into a half retreat. Poorly aimed shadows shot forwards and incapacitated limited amounts of enemies. Blunt weapons – or weapons with owners too exhausted to make them work properly – hacked at the flesh of zombies or the skin of Hollow Men and failed to penetrate them. Fireballs spun towards whatever was closest and missed, spinning off course as we continued to drain more and more energy from rapidly decreasing amount of it.

Slowly, even as we continued to battle our futile fight and attack with strength that was barely flowing anymore, we were driven backwards. If it was desired at that time, I’m certain that the Hollow Men and the zombies would have been able to finish us off there and then. But it seemed to me that they were actually enjoying the way that things were progressing. Which, of course, was probably completely unreliable and untrue because I was so beaten down and so torn apart by that point that I don’t think I was even consciously aware of what I was doing. But either way, they didn’t finish us off. Not that day, anyway. But they did continue to drive us backwards, and it was like that first day of the invasion all over again – darkened and worsened one hundred times over.

Night had really fallen by then, and the only real sources of light illuminating anything were the few enemies previously taken out with fireballs and the occasional burst of electricity or fireball during that onslaught. And slowly, bit by bit, the tides of Hollow Men and legions of zombies chipped away at our resolve and determination, and forced us backwards. It was obvious that the whole thing was hopeless. Even then, when we were grouped together, it was futile. Everyone was too weak and too busy fighting to remain on their feet to give the slightest thought about anyone else around.

The moment where we turned our backs on the battle and gave up hope on reclaiming Central happened at different times. For most of us, I think, hope on getting a grip on Central again dissipated when Lynxia fell. But for the few who still had any fight left in them the next few moments held the times where all hope was lost. And when those moments passed, we all took a further step away from the oncoming masses of enemies. It was evident that not all of us wanted to leave. But we were fighting a losing battle, and already half dead. So then, soaking wet, out of breath, exhausted, dehydrated, wounded, and one person down, we turned from the battle and ran, leaving the mindless Lynxia in the midst of things that were only there to kill us.

***

I could barely see. My whole body felt empty, even though my head throbbed and my legs burns and my arms were seized up. Pain felt like a petty thing. It was all distant – barely even a distraction. Not worth my time, because nothing seemed to make sense.

The rain soaked us all to the bone and it had even washed most of the blood away from our faces and clothes now that the supply wasn’t continuously being freshly splattered all over us. It was freezing once more, the night air biting into us enough by itself without the winds that felt like knives.

We ran and we ran and we ran – just like we did when the first wave of Hollow Men pushed us out of Central a million years ago. When Star Inkbright still had a body and Lynxia Lost was not a shambling zombie and we didn’t worry for the safety and the lives for the rest of our friends that were not already in our present company.

And, really, that’s all we’d been doing since that first day; running. Sure there were a few battles fought, but those were just accidents, up until now. And after every one of them it was followed by more running, more cowering from the things that we couldn’t understand or comprehend. Not that it mattered to comprehend. Understanding everything that had happened would not bring us anything in gain, but possibly more to feel utterly hopeless about; more of a sense of complete impossibility; more reinforcement of the idea that we were all going to die in the wild version of a place we called home.

The exact same applied for discovering why everything had happened. There was no point to it and would bring us nothing in gain. In addition to that, I was fairly confident that no one in our little group of survivors had any desire to know why Star Inkbright had lost her life and Lynxia Lost had lost her mind. Of course, me being me, I can’t be entirely sure on that. I wasn’t sure then, I’m still not sure now, and I’ll never really be sure on anything ever again. But I assumed so. And something I did know at the time was that I pretty much wanted to forget about Star and Lynxia from that moment on. Not in an attempt to erase them, but in an attempt to forget everything that happened since that very first day in Central, when the Hollow Men descended, when our world was thrown into…something.

“Chaos” is probably what a lot of us would have used to describe exactly what our world was thrown into. But I wouldn’t use that word. It’s too full, too vivid, too destructive. I think I’d use the word “confusion”. It more accurately describes our predicament since we fled Central for the first time. It describes what my view on our world was, in any case. As I said, pretty much everything that’s happened so far has been told from my view, so I at no point in time have any idea how anything is for the others. And if I had any kind of idea of what may have casually passed through their heads while living our old lives, I had absolutely no idea of what they thought about by this point. We were all different enough before, but now half of us were at complete opposites to one another, and in even extremer forms of what we once were. Some of us were completely changed. But there were some traits that we all seemed to share…

Whatever remains of our old selves we may have had at that point, none of it showed much. There were pretty much two sides to us all now – an angry side and a useless side. The angry side more or less held true for all of us a lot more than the useless side did. Although it was true that we were all pretty much useless while angry as well, the useless side more entailed us being mostly dead to the world – or depressed – as well as useless. And this pretty much held true for all of us at one point or another.

The rest of us that were left, anyway… Sparky, Nixion, Ivy, myself, and Flame.

The way I saw it is that there were three groups at this point. Our group of six, recently cut down to five. The trio that we left behind at the forest. And then, if everyone else was incredibly lucky, the rest of the Bloglandians were all together somewhere. But considering luck has never really been any of our “strong points”, they were all probably either spread out far and thin, or dead.

We didn’t talk as we ran. Not only was there nothing to say, but we had no energy to say it with. We’d burned it all up in the failed fatal assault on Central, and I myself had barely enough in me to turn and run from the place. I have no idea how I continued to run with everyone else. But, just like while fighting the new inhabitants of Central, it seemed to burn less energy to continue doing what I was doing than to muster the strength to stop. It made no sense, yet still applied, and I’ll never work out why and I’ll never care why. Nothing as trivial as that mattered. Not anymore. Not after having been forced from our home. Not after having lost contact with Lavender, Thrust and Johanna. Not after having spent weeks in solitude, unsure of what fate has claimed the other Bloglandians. Not after having witnessed Star Inkbright blow herself up in order to save us. Not after having witnessed Lynxia Lost inexplicably turn into a mindless undead even without having tasted any flesh.

My insides burned, my brain was frozen over, my body ached, the rain soaked my everything. There was nothing in sight that wasn’t drenched – there was nothing in sight that wasn’t rain. We ran blindly through the freezing early morning as rain pounded down on us like ten thousand fists. And we continued to run, for how long I don’t have a clue. It was for hours, I know that much, but beyond that there’s no definite time. Because hours passed and sunrise time came and went and still there was no daylight. The clouds dominated the sky letting nothing through. We were in darkness, violated by rain. It was sempiternal, over and over, again and again.

It was ages before we finally came to a stop. I don’t know who was in front of me or who was behind me or where any of the others were in relation to me. But there was one figure that was running in front of me and one second they were there and the next they’d collapsed onto the ground. I didn’t consciously interpret this as anything, and my immediate reaction was to keep going, just because I had been doing nothing else for far too long and it was as though my brain had forgotten how to do anything but gasp and run. But then something snapped and I was lying in a soaking wet field of grass, not even aware of how I’d gotten there.

But again, I didn’t care. So much had happened in the last few days that I didn’t even know how to interpret it. Leaving Lavender and the others. Running from there to Central. The blur of movement that was the fighting. The image of Lynxia’s unfamiliar snarling face. The last straw of battle. Running again. The running. The running.

Running.

I couldn’t take it at that moment. It was just weakness that I wasn’t yet familiarised to. But it was still weakness. And all I did was breath in, and rain drown out everything…