Lonethorn

It is an odd sensation to experience firsthand -- to be stunned.

A constant sureness to your step and reasoning one moment, only to be upended by the sudden distortion of reality the very next. A sudden contradiction as to what your eyes are seeing now as opposed to what your mind acknowledges mere moments ago. Then you find yourself acting out of instinct--not conscious action-- in the brief instant of disparity between opposing realities your mind registered beforehand. Well, this is what it felt like to me at least. I instantly thought back to all those prior times I was ever stunned, which I can say with relish, is a mere handful of times I can enumerate in a single hand.

What an odd train of thought this is, I admit.

Maybe I am just coping as I suddenly find myself on the ground, crawling with no real sense of direction or purpose before I took hold of my senses as the very world around me seems like it was being torn asunder. The sound of a dozen musket fire reverberated too alarmingly close for my liking. Followed by a wail so horrid, so inhumane ( and so very close) that it nearly made me lose control of my faculties as more humane screams sounded off. Men shouted. Men screamed. Men died.

I tried to put my feet underneath me but my shins betrayed me. Liquid oozed down on my left brow and made it frustrating to see. A brief questing with my free hand illuminated to me that it was no mere water but blood, oozing down a gash I have no memory nor sensation of having received. My right hand, to my relief,  in its grasp was the reassuring weight of a flintlock pistol.  I tried to put my weight underneath me and only succeeded half a feet off the ground via my forearms before my leg buckled underneath me and I slumped once more into the sand. The roar of the ocean was harsh and constant and above its sonorous melody was the din of battle.

What was I doing here again? the thought came abruptly.  I was forgetting something crucial. Something Necessary.  As I try to piece together the last clear fragments of my memory my eyes came upon a form. And for a second time in a single day, I was stunned.

Her eyes lay half-shuttered, such a ungracious and almost comedic look upon her save for the frighteningly lack of movement of her chest. Her platinum-blonde locks half undone and swathed across her features like seaweed.

Before I knew it, my hands dug deep into the sands as I desperately crawled myself towards her like a man drowning. Her grey-blue eyes-- so crystal and haunting, full of derision and disdain and yet found myself ever transfixed by them-- peeked lazily underneath her eyelids. I could not affirm if they were moving for certain or if it was my hopeful imagination. Her lips, usually curled and sneering --always a delight in my opportune serendipity where I managed to find a witty retort, much to me and my peers delight -- lay open and unmoving.

My heart thudded against my chest. My teeth grit as the sand parted before me as I made my way towards her. A gut wrenching scream of a man split the air and was immediately followed by their maker as he flung overhead over the sand dunes. Another barrage of musket fire but it was paltry response at to what it had been a moment ago. That means the Guard's numbers are dwindling.

One problem at a time! I have to make sure she lives! she was so close now.  A flare of hope rose from my chest as I saw (what I think I saw) a flicker of movement from her hand. A grand delusion pierced the veil of despair in our grim situation and I allowed myself a modicum of hope.

That is until I heard the warning.

"Serrano watch out!" came the guard-captain's cry.

Too late.

With soul wrenching swiftness I was dragged away her as a strong, slimy grasp encircled my ankles and pulled me away from Covington's lying body amidst the sands. I felt the creature, its presence so permeating I could cut the air with it. A heat of fear spread from the bottom of my nape and spread throughout my extremities as I stared down the abomination, a chaotic myriad of emotions wracking my heart and soul in a flash of instance. Fear, disgust, horror. All aimed at what possible cruel fate awaited me.

Still having the instinct to raise my flinlock and aim it futilely at the gargantuan abomination.

In that sparse infinity of a half a heartbeat away from death, time slowed to a crawl, even as my fingers enclosed tightly on the trigger. Even as the hammer collided with the frizzen, a miniature of explosion of dark igneum erupting in beautiful cascade of sparks frozen in time right before my very eyes.

The moment where my life flashed before my eyes.