Young Writers Society

After a long wait, chapter 2 of Survival of the Least

Likely. Trying to get my motivation back. Also, sorry for the formatting. I don't know why YWS keeps doing this to me.

XxXxX

I can vaguely feel my body being dragged across the ground.

Just barely, my eyes focus in on the details of the room. Then, slowly, my

eyelids once again begin to shut, and I know nothing.

XxXxX

When I manage to fully wake, my head is aching and my body’s

hanging limply, hands tied tightly behind my back. The room is small, dirt

covering the floor, unlit except for a small torch on the wall behind me. I can

barely move. Am I still in the Catacombs? No, it’s too out of place. Maybe I

got out? Why am I tied up?

I don’t know. But I’ve made it too far just to become a

prisoner again.

I begin to thrash around in my restraints, feeling the rope

digging into my arm, pressed up against the already raw skin. My shoulders

shake, and I want to gag. It seems as though all I’m doing is making the rope

tighter…

I fall backwards slightly, knocking the torch of the wall

and falling to the ground beside it. I continue fiddling with the rope. One of

my hands knocks against the torch, and I scream. The fire is scorching, burning

through. My hands are free, arms bloodied and burned black.I stumble to my feet, running into the wall

in front of me. It’s painful. So painful…

I hear something in the hall, and all of a sudden,

everything swarms my head at once. My captors, the Oni…what if I’m in the main

entrance of the tombs? That thought alone makes me cringe.

I glance around the unlit room. It’s dark, so dark nothing’s

visible. My hands feel around on the walls for a switch, a door, anything at

all. There’s nothing, nothing amongst the expanse of solid stone.

I feel like screaming again, but it’s too likely to attract

who- or what- ever trapped me in

here. Frantically, I continue dragging my hands over the walls. I must’ve

gotten in here somehow…right?

Voices sound from the outer wall of the cave, slightly

audible mutters, and loud, clanging footsteps. A rock moves to my left, and a

small patch of light shows in front of me. My mind is so hazy that I don’t

think- I run.

I stumble straight into the first man to enter the room,

shoving him away and onto the ground. My eyes dart around wildly. Is he the

only one? Are there more? He pulls a gun, and I fall on top of him, nails

digging into his arm, teeth ripping at his throat. It’s for my own good. I need

to do this. I need to survive. It’s for my own good…right?

I can’t stop until he begins to stop breathing, and my bloodstained

hands wrestle the gun from his grasp, and I hold it out in front of me, only to

see another figure approaching. “What’s going on down there?” I turn, looking

for any way out, but not before something hits me in the shoulder. I fall to my

knees, groaning in pain, tearing ragged breaths from my lungs. Something

presses into my back, and I hiss.

“He killed Talisen.” The man behind me says. “He’s like a

fucking animal. Given us a lot of trouble, tracking him down.”

“Damn right it has.” Another person grunts from further down

the tunnel. “But now we can put him out of his misery. There’s no need for this

to go on.”

I feel the first man’s hand moving from my back to my neck,

sharp metal digging into the side of my collarbone. It’s like I act on instinct

alone, like my body’s not under my control; my arm rears back, elbow catching

him in the side sharply as I turn, shotgun still in my hands, and fire a short

into his chest as he lunges again. I drop the shotgun. Then I take off.

The tunnel is full of sharp twists and turns, and I dodge

falling debris, slipping through small holes, going every which way. There’s

got to be an exit somewhere. There has to be. The footsteps are following

behind me, and I’m shivering, and all of a sudden, something grabs my leg and I

kick wildly, trying to free myself. Then I’m running again, and there’s rock

falling, and there’s no way I can make it, it’s just not possible and-

I’m outside. I’m outside, and the cold, biting wind is

hitting my face, my eyes focusing in on a dark sky, lit by hundreds upon

thousands of stars. I fall to the ground, coughing, trying to catch my breath,

but I just can’t seem to.

I don’t know how I manage to make it any further, dragging

myself across the ground in short, complicated motions, but soon enough, I find

myself under a large tree, huddled into a ball as rain begins to pour from the

sky, multitudes of drops washing way dirt and pebbles.

For the first time in ten months, I laugh.

XxXxX

It’s not too long after dawn hits that I realize my proximity

to the caverns. I can’t stay here. I’m soaked to the bone, freezing, and

completely unsheltered. Conspicuous.

I spend awhile walking around in the rain, energy drained

from my body, stumbling across wet ground, falling occasionally. Eventually, I

come to a small, dilapidated wooden building that I’m nervous about scouting.

It doesn’t seem to be occupied. That’s not saying much, though. I shouldn’t go

in.

I find my feet drawing closer to the door anyway. It creaks

when opened, and I cringe at the noise, glancing around the surrounding area,

before stepping inside. There’s another door just in front of me, light on

inside, and thoughtlessly, I push it open.

The stench of rotting meat fills my nose. Body parts lay

littered on the ground, and stuck in a wall is a makeshift axe. I feel myself

press further back against the wall, but there’s no one in sight. I reach over,

and tug on the axe, but it won’t budge. I try again, and again, until

eventually, I fall against the floor, axe clutched in my hands tightly.

A noise sounds, and I rush, grabbing the handle of the door

I came through, rushing back outside into the wet and cold. Whoever’s

collecting body parts in there isn’t going to get mine.

Not if I’ve got anything to say about it.

XxXxX

My feet are freezing as I trek through the cold mud. I hear a crow cawing off in the distance, as light begins to show in the sky. There’s rustling in the trees, howling, fluttering wings everywhere, and I feel almost as if I’m being hunted. The Oni…are they still after me? I used to hear rumors of them marking their prey, hunting them to extinction. The thought itself unnerves me. The Captors, too, are calling for me, for my blood.

I look down at the axe clutched roughly in my right hand,

raindrops still clinging to the stone handle.

I won’t let them take me alive.

XxXxX

I don’t know how long I trek for, until I finally find the

bunker in the mountains. It’s abandoned, under the shade of a large tree, a pit

filled with white sand, near the ruins of some ancient building. It’s almost

like a house, I think as I sit down. A base, somewhere I can return to.

Of course, I guess I might not

ever return. Whatever happens from here on out might kill me. And somewhere in

my head, I wonder if I’m already dead.

XxXxX

XXXEND CHAPTER 2XXX