October vignette

[Sage]

It was the smell that disturbed him the most. Rotten flesh and putrid boils made him dry heave. While its clouded milky white eyes that saw nothing, bore into him with an unrivalled intensity that triggered a powerful flight response that gave his legs more strength than he had ever imagined. He didn’t look back, not as he raced through a thicket with the images of a half rotten mouth cranked open wide and stained with blackened blood.

He stumbled across a pathway in the dead of the night and cut his knee on a broken stone. The gnarled Tree’s rached for him in the gloomy moonless sky and snatched at his hooded cloak and yanked him backwards. Sage struggled against his unseen foe and pulled and fought to free himself. He cried and grit his teeth eager to set himself free but to no avail and his cloak grew more twisted the more he struggled.

He felt his fear manifest long before he saw it, leaping over a broken fence and sniffed him out in rapid short bursts, it twitched in his direction and hissed dangerously before launching towards him in a full sprint.

It was upon him in an instant and just as its grasping fingers began to find purchase on his robes, the boy ducked down and under his tangled cloak and escaped by a hairs breadth as the undead nightmare clawed at him through the remains of his cloak.

Sage did not scream, because he was already running as fast as his legs could possibly carry him. His movement was more precise now that he was no longer weighed down by the weight of his cloak. He considered ditching his robes too until he spotted the entrance further down the path.
A furious snarl rang in his ear and he felt his pursuer scrambling at his heels, desperation kept him running and his fear made him keep his eyes on the doorframe. He left the overgrown thicket and crossed the courtyard of dead leaves an eternity later. Sage felt his breath grow heavy and more laboured as the exertion made his chest feel like it was on fire.

He charged up the steps three at a time and raced inside the mansion stopping only long enough to grab the door that had been left ajar and slam it shut with all his might before the undead was atop of him. There was a single moment of paralysing fear as the door was unable to close fully as the creature on the other side slammed into it like a drunken brawler. But Sage was also one to quickly act and slammed the full weight of his body against the other side of the door. The door held fast between the unstoppable force and the immovable object giving no indication over which side would win.

He screamed

The undead growled tonelessly

Ground was lost

and gained as his feet found purchase on the floor.

The undead tried to reach him from around the door while its intact fingers flailed scaping paint and woodchips with broken nails. But it had sacrificed a stable base in its attempt to catch him and Sage was briefly able to push forwards and gain enough momentum to slam the door close.

The door rocked and shook as it tried to regain entry and the door held up but did not look like it could hold up under a relentless assault for long. Much to his relief, Sage saw that there was a wardrobe next to the door that had once been used to hang up the owners coats. it was big, large and very heavy. But if it were to be braced against the door then there was a chance that even if the undead monster broke down the door it would slow it down long enough for him to gain some much-wanted distance.

Sage slammed into its side with a heavy grunt, and used all of his strength to push it into place. It stood fast at first and gave only a mere inch when the boy was blue in the face. But he grit his teeth as the fear and adrenalin fuelled his compulsion to escape so much that he managed to gain a modicum amount of leverage and send the wardrobe falling onto its side and slammed against the ground with an almighty sound.
He breathed heavily but he was not out of danger yet.

He looked around the open foyer to see if he could spot anything that would be of use. Under any other circumstances he would have used one of his spells to ward of his undead attacker but he just could not focus. Visions of teeth tearing into his skin plagued him, and the complex runes and mathematics needed to bring life to his arcane might was shredded into kindle with thoughts of his insides being scooping out by eager hands.

The macabre thoughts did little to settle his mood and his hopes of finding help were drowned under an ocean of terror when he saw that this home had been abandoned for a very long time. Paint and the floral wallpaper hung loosely from the walls, worn and torn from years of being exposed to the elements through the massive hole in the ceiling which gave the foyer a musky plant like smell.

Any thoughts of apologising to the owners was washed from Sage’s mind as he crossed the broken foyer towards the steps. Every foot step on the cracked tiles created a crisp click that echoed too loudly.

And yet even as he was halfway up the stairs his attention was drawn curiously towards the faded painting at the top of the staircase.

Although somewhat warn it was still a relatively intact portrait of a middle-aged severe looking woman with pale features and a white frilly gothic dress. The woman was sat down next to a Doberman breed of dog that he could have easily mistaken for a hellhound. It looked unnatural amongst its surroundings and stood out being relatively untouched unlike the rest of the room.

Sage knew of this place, there had been talk of a haunted mansion at the top of the hill. The locals were hesitant to talk about it, but young eager adventures had let it slip that a noble family had once lived in the manor. But there was also talk of death, of how one by one each family member died often to tragic accidents or to an unexplained illness until only the daughter had survived. After the death of her family it was her servants that were the next in line to suffer a gruesome end, with each death growing more and more violent.

Corpses had been paraded, turned inside out for the young nobles twisted glee. There was talk of demons, and a deal made with a powerful devil in exchange for power, untold riches and eternal youth.

Sage had not believed a single word of it and believed that the stories had been embellished over the years with superstition and a misunderstanding that grew out of hand. Had he not been intent to run for his life if would have very much have liked to investigate if any of those stories held any merit.

He was after all, very good at scrying into the past.

The door suddenly snapped into tinder and alerted the boy to the undead clambering through the splintering door with its arm reaching forward in a demented eagerness. The boy cursed and flew up the rest of the stairs but the steps cracked and snapped as the entire staircase caved in under its own weight. Sage stumbled as the ground gave out beneath him causing him to fall through into the darkness below.

Sage did not have time to panic beyond the initial storm of pandemonium that were his thoughts as he plummeted into the dark depths of the mansion did he come to a very sudden stop. The boy crumpled lifelessly to the ground as the air in his lungs were violently evacuated in the one moment his body bounced on the ground.

His vision swam with as distorted shapes flew around the room and his ears buzzed in a clean white shrieking noise.
He stayed still, his body hurt like it had never had before and he was honestly feeling sorry for himself. Sorry that he had come across a zombie, sorry that he had made for the stairs when the foyer had plenty of other doors he could have chosen.

The boy whimpered as he lay there but looked upwards at the only source of light he had within this bleak darkness and heard the confused hiss of the undead far above him. He knew he couldn’t stay where he was, he was alone and he had to make it out of this place alone. No one would come.

He grit his teeth tightly as he struggled to push himself up into a sitting position, his arm hurt and was rotated into an odd angle. Broken he sourly noted unable to do anything about it. He tried to stay quiet since he did not want the undead finding him and looked up into the room he had fall into.

It was dark, but there was no mistaking that this was once a wine cellar, he had grown up on a vineyard and was more than familiar with such places. But the air was rancid, long had the wine barrels been spoiled and it filled the room with a pungent sickly-sweet aroma. Sage held up his loose sleeve over his mouth and gently muffled his own coughing fit.

…Go away…

Sage paused as he thought he heard something on the wind. He stared into the darkness suspicious of what may be hidden just beyond the vale of shadows. But Sage felt a cold shiver crawl along his back as the longer he stared the more he was convinced that someone was watching him. He started moving, away from the precious light and stepped into the darkness itself.

He raised his good hand to prepare a spell, his light spell would no doubt be priceless in this place. But the spell would not come, his magic would not stir and each time he thought that it did his magic seemed to shrink away from him and out of his control.

Was it because of the zombie? He shuddered with the revelation that was what had stunted his spells, and was dismayed when he realised, he had no idea how long it would take him to calm down before he could even cast his most basic spell.

“I hate zombies” He quietly whined.

He kept his hand out In front of him, sweeping it left and right too feel for anything that might be in his way.

“I will get out of here” He said as a promise to himself