Rain stirred-
A slow, painful breath rattled in his chest. His eyelids peeled open, blinking against the morning light filtering through the cracks in the boarded-up hideout.
The stench hit him first- metallic, sour, and thick like rotting.
He tried to sit up. Skin peeled away from the wooden floor with a sickening stick.
His torso was caked in a crust of black grime, flaking and brittle dried ichor, sweat,blood, and impurities his body had purged during the awakening. It clung to his flesh like a second skin.
His breath steamed in the cool morning air.
He felt… different.
Not stronger. Not yet. But denser somehow. Sharper. Like his bones had been reforged while he screamed in the dark.
Through a gap in the boarded window, he caught the murmur of the outside world. Vendors barking prices, carts trundling past, the distant clatter of hooves on cobblestones.
Morning.
He'd survived the night.
Rain's gaze shifted to the far corner of the room—then froze. The air turned cold in his lungs.
Tessa lay there.
Face pale, lips tinged blue. Her limbs were stiff, twisted beneath her like a collapsed marionette. Blood had long since dried in a wide smear under her neck, soaked into the floorboards.
Rain stared at her corpse for a long moment.
Not with pity.Not with guilt- Just… stillness.
He was lost in that moment for a few minutes- his mind wandering and racing.
It then hit him, he was not out of the woods yet, the guards would ramp up their search for him....he had to disappear...soon.
That reminded him- he had to check for his status, hopefully all would have not been for nothing.
"Status," He muttered.
A few seconds passed by- nothing.
Tried straining his eyes, squinting- all were answered with silence.
Rain was now panicking- he was pacing to and fro- trying to calm himself down and failing to do so.
"I'm so dead. Nooo... fuck it!" Rain muttered to himself, he was going mad.
"All that effort for nothing?....wait...."
He sat down, seems like he discovered something he had been overlooking.
With his eyes closed, he scanned his body, all through; and there he found it! A shimmer.
He tugged on it with all his will- runes unfurled in his vision.
At first it was all gibberish but then he understood it:
>>><<<<
Name: Rain
Rank: Awakened
Attributes: nil
Aspect: Shadow weave
Aspect Ability: Shadow control
Ability description: The shadows listen to your call, embrace you as kin.
>>><<<<
It was there, all that he had fought through and survived for.
Truth be told he didn't feel like the change he'd expected:
restrained strength, his muscles felt like springs ready to uncoil and unleash hell on whoever stood on his path.
There was a feel on his presence- enhanced, imposing itself onto the world though restricted.
He would have to assess them later, when his life is not about to be cut short at any moment.
Turning his face, he glanced back towards Tessa's corpse- he had to leave, he couldn't say that the guards weren't on their way right now, knowing that Tessa had ratted out all their plan- what would hold her back from keeping their little hide out secret?
It wasn't also that difficult for the guards to piece things together, they would be hot on his heels soon- he couldn't be lucky to escape them twice, would he?
Ruffling through the corpse, he found a satchel tied close to the waist, hidden.
Within lay a gleaming silver and several coppers- he didn't have the time to count them all.
He had decided, he would leave the city, staying would only be waiting for death, or worse get tortured then killed.
The sewers- nobody goes there anyway- that would be his ideal escape route, it headed just outside the city.
He would survive- hopefully he doesn't encounter any horrendous beast that had decided to make the sewer its lair.
***
Slipping past unnoticed was easy with his small and slender figure.
He jumped in- the sewers were pitch dark, not to mention the stench of human excrement- not that his body was smelling like lillies or lavenders.
He pushed on nevertheless.
"Just follow the flow, it ends outside, eventually."
Rain said, convincing himself to soldier on.
It had been hours- Rain couldn't really tell.
He had followed the never-ending tunnels, made uncountable turns yet the exit was not within his sights.
The sludge covering his feet ;to the thighs was respulsive, he couldn't even begin to imagine how rats and other beasts managed to thrive here.
>>ahh<<
He flinched, a large rat was swimming past him, it had grazed his torso.
Many were his encounters with them since he jumped into the sewers, always prowling, one had tried to make a quick meal out of him but he promtly dispatched it with his two rusty knives- the vermin itself turned to be a meal for its kin.
Rain turned, there was some skittering behind him- the vermin had gathered!.
It seems he was a too enticing meal to pass by- they were everywhere, on the tunnel walls behind him, in the sludge swimming towards him.
If he lingers- he wouldn't get to see the next day.
Stashing his knives next to the satchel tied on his waist, he dove in and paddled.
The vermin hot on his heels, skittering across the wall, some knocked down into the sludge below by their kin, they didn't stop the chase nevertheless, the swam towards him.
Rain imagining how the rats would swam him and devour him alive, he paddled even faster, adrenaline kicking in, his awakened physique proved helpful.
He managed to make some distance- though miniscule.
A glance behind made his skin crawl with fear, a blanket of vermin in the sludge, hundreds of glowing eyes across the tunnel wall; if he hadn't already been scared for his life,now he's got a convincing motivator.
The flow of the sludge was helping him swim faster, but then if that was an advantage, then his pursuer would have it too, after all they were swimming in the same direction.
There was hope!
A shimmering light at a distance, though muted, it was light nevetheless.
Rain doubled his efforts- just then a shooting pain struck his thigh, he'd been given a bite, the vermin were closing in.
A twist dislodged the rat from his thigh, he then dove in, swimming under the sludge, occasionally coming up for air.
His effort had paid off, just infront of him was the exit.
Thank God it wasn't gated-or else he would have been dead meat.
He scrammbled through the exit, plunging down into the sea below, some verming scurring after him.
The dive was disorienting.
He came up after a few moments, fighting the waves- he scanned, at a distance was the shore, giving way next to the forest.
Rain made for it, using all his remaining strength- his would be persuers had taken a plunge, taken by the waves.
Rain gasped as he broke the surface, arms thrashing in choppy, unforgiving currents. Every stroke felt like dragging chains through sludge. The weight of his clothes pulled at him- soaked clothes, leather boots felt like anchors- dragging him down.
He kicked harder, teeth clenched against the cold that gnawed at his bones.
His muscles screamed, worn raw from blood loss and the brutal awakening.
The sea didn't care. It swallowed strength without mercy, each wave rising like a wall to knock him back, to pull him under.
He spat out a mouthful of brine, vision flickering, shoulders burning.
Keep moving. Keep moving. Don't stop.
His limbs were jelly now, unresponsive, his breath reduced to broken gasps between crashes of saltwater. A sharp cramp twisted through his calf- he cried out, kicking with the other leg, barely staying afloat. The shore was ahead. Just a smear of grey and rock in the distance. It looked closer than it felt.
The current fought him with every inch, dragging at his waist, trying to claim him.
Not here. Not like this.
The pain in his lungs bloomed like fire. His vision darkened at the edges; blurring, head dipping under for a second too long. Panic surged- primal, furious- and he burst to the surface again, gasping for air, his coughd resulted with him taking a few pints of salty water.
His hand clawed at open air, then water, then nothing.
Still he swam.
The taste of iron now mingled with the salt- from a bitten tongue or maybe something worse- he couldn't tell. His body was a collection of searing nerves, screaming muscle, and will.
Then- finally- his fingers brushed something solid beneath the surface.
Rock.
Another stroke. His knee scraped sand.
Rain surged forward, arms trembling, lungs howling, and slapped both hands against the shoreline. Pebbles and silt shifted under his palms as the waves crashed behind him.
He'd made it.