Ice Mountain: Part 4

This is it, she thought as the roaring began and the feel of hot rancid breath plumed on her sweaty skin. This is it.

When she heard the screaming, and the shouts, (men?), and the distinct sound of many things dying at once, Sarah felt herself fall into darkness.

On the outside, her milky eyes flutter open.


At that moment, Sarah became two women.

A scared, drowning wraith inside, and a cruel monster on the outside. Her outer self glanced around with eyes too cloudy to be human. They scanned the scene playing out before her as she lay on the ground, her body twitched convulsively.

Her assumption appeared to be right. The shouts were indeed coming from men, although these men looked rather hulkish, primal. They attacked the long legged beasts with such ferocity that the outer Sarah had to wonder if they might only be beasts themselves. A grin played at her cracked lips, nonetheless. Like those milky eyes, it was all too inhuman.

The hulks that might or might not be men, wielded huge curving battle axes, which they swung in great aches at their enemy. None of them carried a sword, she realized. But of course, it didn't appear as though they needed swords for speed. They handled the axes as though they were mere sticks. She realized, if she were to fight one of these hulkish men, them with their slopping brows and deep set fiery eyes, them with their long wild manes of hair, she'd lose quite quickly.

The outer Sarah, though very interested at what was taking place here in this wide clearing, let her mind drift to the inner Sarah. The one trying so desperately to claw her way back to the surface, but to no avail.

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"Die, die, die, die." The word echoed to her from the bleak darkness surrounding her.

Sarah, sobbing, swam in this void of darkness, this place where nothingness was the rule. She cried out for help, but no one would answer her call. Except, of course, that raspy voice repeating that single final word.

"Die, die, die, die, die."

The poison which had entered her body from the cut she received, was now keeping her held here int his dark prison. Sarah pleaded with ti to let her go, but it would not.

Then she heard another voice mingle with that of the "die voice".

"It's right you know. You have to die. It's my turn now."

That voice, it sounded so much like her own. She screamed and swam frantically in the dark. There was no floor, no walls, yet she was restricted here.

"Give up, Sarah. This is my body now. Give up, and be with your boy."

Hot, like bursting fire stones, anger overwhelmed Sarah. She roared, hands grasping for anything they could touch. They found nothing but dark air.

"I'm going to kill you, Sarah, and then this will be my home, your body."

"No!" Sarah screamed, graping crazily at the air.

Her fingers brushed something, and her breath caught in her chest, both inside and out.

(To be continued...)