Writing Championships #5

Purple Protags

Prompt: Sudden Curse Reveals Yourself (SCRY)

Doc ducked branches as they flew past at dizzying speeds. Leaves fluttered by in his wake, his elytra was straining to hold itself together. He spun in the air to avoid one much to close to his skull. In a desperate attempt to stay safe, he fanned out his elytra and dropped. His struggling elytra finally gave out, and he plummeted to the forest floor. Luckily he was close enough to the ground to not take too much damage as he landed.

He panted, trying to catch his breath before spotting his destination up ahead. A village peeked through the trees, vines and cobblestone and wood welcoming him to Scar's village.

Doc put his hands on his knees, shutting his non-cyborg eye for a moment before straightening up and jogging forward. Luckily, Scar was right outside on a pathway, squinting at one of his buildings with criticism in his gaze. He turned as Doc came up behind him.

"Ah, Doc! What can I help you with?"

#

"Well, I was messing with my elytra enchantments, and somehow I think it messed with the Mending enchant I already had on it. I was flying and it ripped, but you were close by and I managed to make it here. You're good with magic, you can help, right?" Doc motioned to his torn elytra dangling hopelessly off of his shoulders.

Scar picked up one side of it and shook it. A feather floated off, landing gently on the ground. He frowned.

"What did you do to this thing?"

"Ah, you see, I can't. . . really. . . remember?" Scar stared at him.

"So you put a random enchant on and called it good."

"It used half of my levels! I figured it would be fine!"

Scar sighed, dropping the elytra. "I can fix it, but since you can't recall what the second enchant was, it'll remove it." Doc nodded."The spell returns something to a previous state." Another nod. "It's tricky, so it might go weirdly. If it does, I can undo it, it might just take some time. Ready?" A final nod.

Scar held his hands out, coils of magic spinning around them delicately. He motioned for Doc to turn around, and then placed his hands on the cyborg's shoulders. He furrowed his brow in concentration, then his eyes widened. He jumped back, but it was too late. A white-hot surge of magic electrocuted Doc's body and everything went black.

He was trapped. The portal had closed. His vision was black. Where even was he? Where do you go after you seemingly die, anyway. He could hear laughter. At what? From what? Was it at him? Was he the one laughing? It was hard to tell. All he knew was there was a scorching pain in his left eye. Were they laughing at his pain? He went to feel for where the pain was coming from. But there was nothing. Like half his face had been taken off in the portal.

He felt numb, all over his body was numb besides the searing pain that was coming from him. He wanted to scream. But at the same time, he couldn;t even hear himself talking normally right now. Just laughter. Laughter. Laughing. Laughing at his pain. Like it was never going to end.

Doc came back from his retrogression with a scream, instantly going to feel where his eye was. Metal. It was alright, he wasn't back there.

Score: 9.5