Rise of Qancin

Chapter 2: Running Away

I jerk myself awake like I had fallen hundreds of feet into my current lying position. The room is cold, and candles were keeping the room dimly light. My head is pounding, my entire body is stiff, and my vision is blurry. I go to sit up and the entire room starts to spin – where am I? To my left I see what looks like rags, tubes, and some machine next to me. My skin feels cold and looks severely bruised all over. At the back of my mind, I hear a soft whisper – leave through the window. I look around and see a small window to the right of me with a little bit of light shining through. Slowly I get up, but my body is weak, and I collapse to the ground. Shuffling and faint talking can be heard from beyond the walls behind me. I slowly crawl towards the window to find myself in front a desk. I help myself up off the floor by using the chair and eventually climb on top of the desk. I open the window’s latch to see that I am on the ground floor. I sigh in relief and climb out of the building.

The moon is high in the night sky, the night is chilly, and the wind blows occasionally. The chilly wind causes my naked body to shiver, but I ignore that fact and focus on figuring out a way to escape. I slowly make my way to the gate once I discover that I am in a courtyard. The fragrances of the flowers and fresh grass smells so wonderful. Slowly I open the gate to peek – no one is here, but where do I go? My first instinct is to follow along the dirt path on the backside of the buildings until I find the gate to what looks like the inner-city wall. The dirt roads are damp, and puddles are everywhere – did it rain recently and how long ago? Eventually, I see the large gate and I crouch next to a musky barrel in the dark alleyway. I exam the situation to determine that the gate is left open with two or three guards standing watch on both sides. How am I supposed to get past the guards with nothing to defend myself with?

A bell starts ringing in the distance, the sound is coming from the direction I escaped from, and panic begins to rise as I try to come up with a quick plan. I notice some guards shouting, “General….body has disappeared. We…find the body thief…all cost. Understand?” Looks like they salute and some of the guard standing near the gate begins to leave. This is my only opportunity, even if I get seen by some of them, I have a better chance of surviving than staying here. I stand up and take deep breaths to calm myself before I begin running my way towards the gate. My body feels wobbly and disoriented as I run through the gate’s entrance. The guards on the exit side notice me and shouts, “Stop!”. I hear them begin chasing after me. Panic starts to set in as I have no idea on how to get out of the city and find myself coming to some back alleyways. Quietly in my mind I hear – Take the next left and continue through the back alleys. Lose them! I listen to the unknown voice as I have nothing else to go off.

I turn left and head through a smaller yet cramped alley. One of the men shout to the other, “Go around…I…catch up.” I climb over barrels and many storage containers knowing that a man in armor will be hard to get around. Even softer this time, the whisper says - Take the next right and cut across the main road to another alleyway. Once out of the second alleyway, I come to the brick main road, which is quiet, damp, and well light. I head down the main road some to see the outer-city gate in the distance. I smile in excitement and quickly go into another back alley. Shortly after I hear the someone shouting, “I lost him!” The excitement disappears and I begin to panic more because the man is not far behind me. I take a right knowing I am getting closer to the main gate. At the end of the alley, I stop at the corner to see an empty stall next to me, so I hide in there to rest for a few minutes.

I hear someone running down the ally I came from, so I hide in the closest corner of the stall, so they do not see me when running pass. That person runs pass to only stop in front of the stall. I hold my breath in fear of being caught. The man in front of the stall shouts, “Do not…anyone get…the gate! Understood?” He slams his fist into the stall and then walks away. At this point I am shaking and slowly exhaling. That was so close. After a few minutes of rest, I peek above the stall to see the gate being well guarded. What do I do? Use a distraction, the voice whispered in my mind. Why can I hear this voice? Who are they and why are they helping me? After a minute of silence, I push those questions to the back of my mind knowing I will get no response, and I focus on the task at hand. I look around to see a glass bottle laying on the ground inside the stall. I pick it up and throw it away from the stall and the gate. The bottle hits the floor near the wall and one the guards near the gate say, “Someone…climbing…city wall!” The man gestures the other to follow.

The guards go behind some houses along the wall. I stand up and begin running through the open gate. The two guards on the other side begin follow me. I run to the right off the main dirt road through the miles of fields. The guards do not let up and continue to follow me past the fields. Eventually I end up running up to the tree line to the woods, and this point I have a pounding headache, disoriented, and fatigued. I run into the woods without a care to find myself getting cuts from the low-lying branches. At some point, I step on something hard, lose balance, and fall down a hillside. I feel my body getting torn up by the rocks and branches all over the ground of the heavily wood area. Once at the bottom of the hill, I go to stand up to see my chasers at the top of the steep hill. Sharp pain radiates from my right arm as I continue to run away. I look to see a huge cut with blood running down my arm.

 After a while, even when I thought I lost them, I hear shouting from the distance slowly getting closer – how are they still on my tail? How much longer can I outrun them? Blood continues to run down my right arm as I stumble down another hillside, but this one being very rocky. The moon is still high in the night sky radiating the ground before me as I travel away from the city. The sound of the city’s alarm bells begins fading off into the distance as I jog into the thicker portion of the woods. Ahead I see the opening of a rock alcove facing the shallow river and decide to hide at the back of the alcove. Fatigue causes me to collapse to the cold rocky floor. I look back to the alcove’s entrance and see a blood trail leading into the alcove and I smile knowing all my efforts will soon be in vain.

The distant shouting comes closer and see my chasers in full armor near the entrance of the alcove. With what strength I have left, I hide behind a large rock, and wait for my death to come. I peak behind the rock to see the one, who lights a torch with magic, notifying the other after he spots the blood trail, and they enter the alcove slowly. I hide as I see the light cast deep shadows all around the inside of the alcove. The man with the torch leads the way and is steps away from me – surely, I would be caught. I hold my breath while my emotions frantically surge within, yet all I hear is my heart pounding, the breathing of my chasers, and the water slowly flowing down river. Moments pass before we all hear a loud snap from outside the alcove, the man near the entrance says something to the other and they both begin to leave. As the light disappears from the alcove and their voice begin to fade in the distance - I gasp for air.

How did I escape inevitable death? Is some higher being changing the course of my fate? I smile at the thought of a second chance. My body grows cold and I do not have the strength to dress the wound or light a fire. My memory is fuzzy and cannot make sense of why those people were chasing me. I thought back on how my escape from the city was a miracle. I push that thought to the back of my mind as I lie on the rocky floor letting myself slowly fall unconscious. All I could think about is - will I ultimately die here in this alcove? At that last moment I hear laughter and soft whisper at the back of my mind say, “Is that how you will toss away your second chance? How pathetic…”