The Third Annual Writer's Game: Roots

Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit | Follin Ryme

Why did everything rush on by?

It was a question he'd never asked before, one he'd never really cared to have an answer for before he'd been pushed into the arena. They must've been there for days, maybe even weeks, but it still felt like that first day - painful pulses of adrenaline, uncomfortable sores and tugging bruises. But everything was moving too quickly for Follin to give any of that any mind. Wet greens and grey skies cupped his vision in blurs. Shrubbery or fur grazed his skin as he passed - he couldn't tell which was which, couldn't bother himself with stopping to double-check.

He was running out of time.

And he was running. He couldn't remember when he'd finally resolved to push himself to a stand and start sprinting off through the unknown, only that he was doing it. His legs throbbed against scabbed over scratches, and his lungs burned with a certain rawness he'd only experienced when he first entered the dome of damnation - I'm damned, he continued to think, I'm running through fire. I'm running through Hell.

The fiery flames licked up his calves, they slowed him down as they bit into the calloused skin of his feet, as they tasted the flesh of his thighs. Enthralled by him, they jumped to the very core of his abdomen, sewing in stitches and edging them back out. His pumping arms only fanned the flames, and they moved on up, over his chest, to his shoulders. The charring path rose, and rose, and rose - and then it stopped. He collapsed in on himself, falling over his knees and gasping for breath that the smoke of his imagination had pulled away from him.

His breaths came out as wheezes. A plethora of pained grunts sounded as he lowered himself to the ground and wrapped aching arms around his knees, ducking his head in the crook of an elbow. Hot streaks spilled over his face, but he couldn't tell if it was sweat or something else. I'm damned. I left, I left them alone at home, and now I'm damned for it. An animalistic whimper clutched at his throat. He let it strangle him; he began to cough hot breath against his knees. And if nobody else damns me, then I'll do it myself.

He wasn't sure how long time went on after that. Any conception of it had left days ago. He was left to decipher morning from sunset on his own, a feat he could barely accomplish anymore. There was nothing he could do.

So he let it fly.

Seconds buzzed by his ears, minutes hummed behind him, hours beat flimsy wings overhead. He remained trapped in the little cage he'd made for himself. It was secure. It was definite. It would hold. He had control.

Control is a funny little thing, he thought to himself. It varies. There's control of one's own life. And then there's control of another's. He dug dirt-lined nails into his arm. That's what this game is based upon. It's the very foundation.

Control.

Follin had never had a very good hold on control in the first place. He spent his life being directed by others, corralled in a tiny den like some pet. Then they picked him up and tossed him in a pit to be ripped apart by others who'd been controlled.

They were let loose in a cage, and that gave some of the animals their first taste of control.

Not Follin. Once, and only once had he felt like he was in full control of himself. Always on the bridge. He'd taken withdrawal, and now he thirsted for that control again, the ability to teeter to one side or the other. Into the rapids, onto hard wood.

Six of us. Six of us left to chain up.

Briefly, he thought of taking to the same method so many others had chosen for that feeling. Plunging a knife into an opponent's chest, firing an arrow into a competitor's throat.