31
(Season 3, Episode 5)
How I Got This Way
One second after the Instant…
Scott saw the bright light wash over him and, what seemed
like, all of space and time.
Then he snapped awake. Breathing hard and covered in sweat, he looked
around. Scott was on his couch at his
house in Medina. The room was dark, the
lights were out, and it was the middle of the night. Confusion set in instantly. He could not understand how he had gotten
here, a second ago he was fighting for his life against the Horseman of War, a
battle for his friend’s very existence, and now, he was home?
It did not make sense.
“Scott?” The light
turned on flooding the living room and temporarily blinding Scott. “Are you okay? You have been screaming about
something so loud you almost woke the children.”
Scott’s eyes adjusted and he saw his wife standing there in
her pajamas, looking concerned. He tried
to get a grip. Had it all been some kind
of giant, bad dream? Had none of it
really happened? Scott had been known to
have long and vivid dreams that he could remember the next day, but this felt
like something else.
“What day is it?” He
asked her, trying to make sense of it all.
“It’s Tuesday.” She
said, not understanding why he had asked.
Scott shook his head. “No, what is the date?”
“October third, why?” She asked, and he took a deep breath.
“I guess I just had a bad dream.” Scott said checking himself for the evidence
of the bruises and wounds he had absorbed in the last forty-eight hours but he found
nothing.
“Are you okay?” His
wife asked, walking over to him and touching his cheek lightly.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Scott answered forcing a smile.
His wife smiled back. “What was this dream about?”
He shrugged. “It was
crazy. I dreamt it was Zach’s birthday
and he had the four horsemen of the apocalypse and some time-eating demon
chasing him and I was the only one who…” He trailed off seeing the complete
befuddlement in his wife’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, it is crazy.” He said, feeling embarrassed.
She nodded. “Well,
yes it is, but you have always had a detailed imagination, but the part that
confuses me the most is: who is this Zach guy?”
Scott looked at her. “Zach, you know Zachariah, my best friend,
Zachariah Van Sluyters. Best man at our
wedding.”
His wife shook her head. “Honey, Eli was the best man at our wedding. I have never met a Zach. Is he a friend from work?”
Scott stared. “You
are serious, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Then Scott put it together. The Dahaka. It really did wipe people from existence. It had made it to Zachariah and erased him. This world did not have a Zachariah Van
Sluyters, nor would it ever. They had
failed.
****
10 years after the instant…
Scott stood at the edge of the large hole in the clearing. His three companions stepped up to the edge
next to him to gaze into the blackness below them.
“You know what that is, right?” Big Green asked nervously.
“The entrance to a rock troll’s lair,” The Killer answered,
matter-of-factly.
Leesa whistled. “Now
I know you are crazy.”
“I’m no coward.” Dire
Wolf grumbled. “But a rock troll is a
tall order, even for us.”
“Wait for my signal.” The Killer said without emotion.
“You can’t be considering going in there alone?” Dire wolf said, confused.
The Killer did not answer. He leapt forward into the darkness of the
hole.
Big Green shook his head. “You have put our cause in the hands of a mad
man, Wolf. I hope you realize this.”
Leesa giggled, staring after him. “He is downright scary. I like it.”
Inside the hole, The Killer let himself fall a few stories
before reaching out and grabbing a vine and using it to spin himself onto
another vine and crouch there, collecting his balance. He waited for the roar. A second later he heard it and knew that it
had sensed him and it was coming.
The rock troll hunted by vibration and set pitfall traps to
the surface. It preferred the
underground, not because its eyesight was bad but because it was sensitive to
the light. In another life this
particular troll had been killed by a druid protecting the Rognaithe. In this world, the Rognaithe had been someone
else, someone more apt to listen to orders. It had gone smoothly and they had never met
his beast.
Down the dark hole in front of him the killer heard the
troll coming and prepared himself.
****
30 Days after the instant…
He could not pretend it had not hurt.
Scott had left his family. At first, he had raged against Zachariah’s
complete loss, then he tried to accept it and move on, knowing that he still
had his family and his health. That was
when he realized that he didn’t still have his family.
His family was gone, wiped off the board by some supernatural
time referee. The first life, he still
remembered it, he was the only one. Nothing
felt right because of it. Food tasted
different and emotions hit him differently. He was not sure whether it was because of some
weird side effect of what he had been through, or if he just couldn’t let go of
the loss… or he was just losing his mind and it really was all in his head.
Then he found them.
The ninjas.
After days spent on the internet, he began to find them,
sightings, whispers, bread crumbs. During this time, he lost his job, deciding it
no longer mattered. He destroyed his
relationship with his family-
No, that was not his family, he had to remind himself over
and over again. None of this was real,
none of it was right. It was the vacuum
created by a universal mistake that needed to be corrected. His family had become the enemies, they would
be constant forces for him to just maintain and accept this existence.
So he left.
They would be better off too, Scott was not their Scott
anymore. This Scott was different, this
Scott would do anything to end this torture…
…He would become a killer.
He was in shape, he was smart and, most of all, he was
driven. He would find the ninjas and
become one of them. He would become part
of this second double world that he had been pulled into because of his friend
and he would find a way to make this right.
Scott had been following a man named Karl Wilson for nearly
an hour now, for the same reason. It had
taken some time for him to understand the system and figure out the signs, but
all he had was time. He was not able to
locate targets for the ninja clan before they made their move, he was able to
intercept them.
He had half expected them to kill him the first time. After all, Kahn and the ninjas had never met
him in this timeline. They had not
killed him though, their own codes prohibiting them from killing any but the
target and potential threats to their well-being.
Scott was neither.
The action had not had the desired reaction, though, as he
wanted to get in with them and they refused. They had written him off. Scott would have to do more to get their
attention. He had to keep trying.
This would be his fourth time.
As Karl moved into the park on his jog, Scott noticed the
flicks of shadow moving in on Karl. The
ninjas were nearly impossible to be seen but Scott had taught himself to notice
them. He had seconds now. Scott picked
up the pace and sprinted forward, slamming into Karl at full speed and sending
the unknowing jogger rolling into the grass.
“What the fuck, buddy?!” Karl yelled as he picked himself up. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Scott and
the ninja facing off.
“Nevermind!” He yelled and resumed running in a more
desperate fashion.
“You again, Gaijin.” The ninja snarled.
Scott tensed up readying himself. “Yeah, me again. I want in.”
“For the last time, we don’t take Gaijins.” The ninja spoke with a heavy accent that only
seemed to increase the effectiveness of the threat.
“Then this is not the last time. I will keep coming until you let me in.” Scott snarled back, secretly trying to calm
the butterflies in his stomach.
The ninja cocked his head to the side, curiously. “You misunderstand, this is the last time
because I am going to kill you.”
The ninja vanished in a puff of smoke and Scott froze. He had devoted the better part of his life to
the combat arts but he was nothing in the face of these people. They also had magic. Scott felt the ninja behind him as if he had
always been there. Had he? Scott didn’t bother turning because in the
next half second, the blade would end his life and none of this would matter
anymore.
“TEISHI!” The woman’s
voice yelled and the ninja stayed his hand.
Scott turned his head and saw her in full garb. It was Kahn. He remembered her from the Instant that never
happened. “This is the Giajin who has
been interfering w3ith our business?”
“One are the same,” Scott said his voice almost cracking
from the fear from seconds ago, “I want you to teach me.”
Kahn eyed him for a second, “So be it giajin…so be it.”
****
10 years after the instant…
It was close now, the giant gorilla-like creature made of
stone and death was coming for its breakfast. The Killer would have one chance
at this. His timing would have to be
perfect. His only option was to end it
in the first blow. A prolonged fight
would mean his death.
The beast exploded out of the cave, its hulking hands
outstretched for The Killer.
“Buraito!” The Killer yelled and the cave exploded with
light from his fist. It was a simple
ninja magic spell one of the first he had learned.
The light assaulted the giant pupil-less eyes of the rock
troll and it screamed in pain. The Killer
opened his eyes just as the light faded, zeroing in on the weak point of the
beast before the world fell to darkness around him again. He leapt forward using his sense memory and
driving his blade into the small crack between the side of the troll’s eye and
the bridge of its nose.
Rock trolls are stone on the outside, thick and
impenetrable, but on the inside they were soft just like everything else in the
world. Everything accept the killer.
The only real obstacle is how to get past the skin to the
soft inside. As the Killer’s blade sunk
in, he knew he had found his way.
The three from above heard the roars and saw the flash of
light before another roar sounded. Then
there was silence.
“He never said what the signal would be.” Leesa said as more of a question.
“How long should we wait?” Big Green asked, eager to get out of the
forest and back to civilization.
Then, without warning, the rock troll’s eye came out of the
darkness and landed on the Leprechaun, sending him to the ground. “Good God!”
Leesa began to laugh uncontrollably.
Signal received! The Axis
continue on their quest but to what end? Only the killer knows. Kahn and her ninjas are hot on their trail but
will she get there in time to stop the killer and save Avalon?
Find out next time…
Stranger Things; Zachariah’s Death
To be continued….
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