Young Writers Society

Here's Chapters 4 and 5....lucky you!

ARCAUS

The hunter never misses a shot. Never. The hunter decides whether you live or die, smile or cry, laugh or bleed.

If he ever lets you go you should consider yourself a miracle on two legs, or whatever he leaves you with.

Isaac was one of those people, the lucky ones, but really he’s very very unlucky in the long term.

The day that Andala found him hiding in storage, three days after he had been plucked from stasis, the last working stasis facility left, the day that he had been tortured with pain and darkness to relinquish the code that had been erased from his brain twenty years before.

That’s the day that Andala made the life changing decision to let him live. The three shots that Andala fired that day found three separate targets, the two guards, and the lock that opened the door to the next room.

Andala was greeted by a suited man, wearing a fedora and a snow white beard, late into his sixties.

“He doesn’t know does he, Andala?” The man smirked, a smile leaked onto his face, creating a ripple of lines around his mouth.

“No” he stated shortly, Isaac was being held in handcuffs, slumped against the doorway, eyes barley open. Andala was looking extremely dissatisfied.

“Did you take care of the loose ends?” The suited man enquired again.

“Yes” Andala replied and gestured to the two dead men, bleeding on the metal grate.

The suited man crouched down to meet Isaac’s drowsy face, smiling contently.

“Hello Isaac, not feeling so good, are you?” The man tried to look into Isaac’s eyes but his head sunk down, too tired to lift it.

The suited man chuckled.

“Thought not” The suited man stood up again and his smile dissipated as he turned to Andala.

“Sling him in a transport and send him via convoy to hammer three, you hear?” The suited man sternly addressed Andala with cold grey eyes.

“Did it ever occur to you that the code was, I don’t know; erased?” The suited man barked.

“Most likely it’s in some sort of device located on his person, get the techys to check him out” He said sternly.

“General, I assumed that such a device would not survive freezing” Andala said firmly, standing to attention. The suited man stepped up to meet Andala, fixing his gaze on him, inches away.

“You don’t assume jack shit, zombie” the suited man taunted, Andala’s stance warped at that sentence, his face skewing into a suppressed rage, pointed teeth slightly bared.

“Hammer Three is going to go armed in ten days, and things would be a lot easier if you would stop kicking the brains out of every lead we get, we clear?” the suited man and Andala stared each other out for a few moments, Andala was fit to burst, nobody calls him a zombie, especially this sad sack of meat.

“Yes ,General” Andala managed to pump out two words so that the general would get out of his face.

The General turned on his heel and strode out of the door, into the darkening light of afternoon, onto the sharp sand and lifeless horizon, save the armoured transports, emblazoned with a White globe and the letters “GRI”.

Isaac had finally slipped into a sedate sleep, Andala watched the general leave through the large complex window, and watched the sun set.

CHAPTER FIVE - Ooooooh You're so Lucky!

It was a long journey in the dark world that surrounded Isaac’s poor beaten frame, they had shackled him to the back of a van, without water and without any treatment for his numerous injuries, they still thought that he knew the code for Hammer Three, but he didn’t care about that anymore, he was hurt and scared.

The damp and rough blindfold clung to his sore eyes, rubbing and scratching his skin, his sweat seeped into the cuts on him and made them sting, a horrible sharp sting.

His wrists were bound and his feet tied also, the skin around the ropes was red and bleeding tiny beads of blood.

The pain engulfed his entire body, the thirst, the pain; the hunger and the fear were his only companions on the long ride to hell.

Isaac drifted in and out of sleep for god knows how long, the seconds seemed like hours and the hours stretched to years.

It seemed like forever. The worst thing about it is, Isaac was alone…alone and confused, nobody he could ever remember was alive now.

A tear made the short trip from his eye to the chafing blindfold.

He could remember no-one and nothing; the faces in his memories were blurs, their voices drowned in the choking silence of the van.

But as he lay in the pool of fear and his own sweat, he heard a voice, in his head, like an angel, soft and beautiful, like a harp strummed with feathers.

“Isaac…” the voice cooed. Just hearing it made his body float.

“Isaac…” the voice caressed him from the inside of his head, disturbingly quiet. Isaac opens his dry mouth, his lips chapped and cut.

“I’m here” he whispers, his lips curling into a gentle smile.

“Isaac…help us” The voice went from cooing to a disturbing mix of pain and desperation, the words like a nail, screeching down a blackboard.

“Help us Isaac” the voice said again, the voice was like two or three different voice in unison. Isaac’s head started to hurt.

“How…how do I help you?” Isaac whispered, the voices were beginning to scare him a little, on the verge of screeching.

“Help…us Isaac, we’re…burning” the voices cried, screams could be heard softly…inside his head.

The throbbing in his head became sharp and ever growing.

The crackle of flames could be heard, Isaac was scared, the voices would not go away, he couldn’t shut his head from the screaming.

“Help us Isaac, you’ve got to wake up” the voices were now screeching, the screams and flames louder, filling his head, pushing his skull.

“Go away…go away” Isaac mumbled, his chained body writhing, his head pulsing, the voice pushing his skull, trying to get out, trying to break open his head.

“Isaac…you’ve got to wake up…the fire Isaac” the voice screaming in chorus.

“Why won’t you help us Isaac” Isaac couldn’t take it anymore, he had to make them stop, but they just got louder.

“Wake up…Wake up…WAKE UP!”