Please find attached the first few pages of my story Angel of Throns. Let me know if you wish to see more!
It was three-thirty in the morning when the voices started.
Kane looked at himself in the mirror as the bathroom light slowly flickered to life. Angry red lines criss-crossed his eyes, while his cheeks sagged under four days worth of stubble. The pain caused by a lack of sleep gripped at his forehead and he slumped against the sink in front of him, feeling the cold porcelain stun his skin. He was exhausted. Every muscle across his arms and back ached, and his mind seemed to swim in a soup of fatigue. None of that mattered, though. They were calling for him, and when the voices started crying out his name he had no option but to go to them.
Tomorrow, Kane would be in Myskata. Tomorrow, he would be trying to save those who were broken.
*****
After barely twenty minutes of searching he had found his first one.
They lay at the base of a cliff on the western beach, their body crumpled on the sand into a foetal position. Small waves broke and lapped at the body, tasting its weathered skin before retreating back to the ocean. Carefully, Kane lowered himself down the rocky cliff-face, his lean body shifting lower and lower until he stood over the creature. By his count it was somewhere around the seventieth creature that he had found on the island, but as he looked down upon it, Kane could only think how similar it looked to all the rest. The same small and hairless humanoid body, covered in the same pale skin and the same ragged garments. The same wide, pale eyes stared up at him, and the same rich blood poured from its wounds. Most importantly of all, though, the same thorn-encrusted vines held their wrists pinned tightly together.
And that’s why Kane was there..
It had been two and a half months since he had first woken in this world, transported in his dreams by forces that he had given up trying to understand. Upon arrival, the first thing he had seen in Myskata was identical to the sight he looked upon now; one of the creatures he called the broken lying in pain with its hands bound by the violet coloured weed. Kneeling down, Kane did exactly as he had done that initial day; he reached out to touch the plant. As soon as his fingers brushed it its vibrant colour began to fade. Within only a few seconds the vines had turned to an ashen grey, and then cracked and crumbled into dust. Letting out a moan of relief, the broken sat up slowly and held its hands in front of its face, examining where the vines had just been. As it did so a flood of colour rushed into its body, the pale complexion becoming a sandy yellow as its health returned. After it had finished looking at its hands, it raised its gaze and looked straight at Kane.
Many emotions had swirled through Kane as he looked into the pale eyes of those who he had saved. The first few times he had been scared, fearing that the broken he had freed would turn on him, like a rabid dog let loose from a cage. As he learned that he had nothing to fear from the broken, however, fear had morphed into curiosity, and he tried to make communication with the creatures in a hope to better understand their plight. Always, though, they had spurned his attempts, clicking away in a language Kane had no hope of understanding before scampering off into the distance. Today, he just stared back at the broken, a numb sense of duty at the forefront of his mind. He had done well; but there was still so much left to do. Turning his back, Kane began his climb back up the cliff, leaving the saved broken to run back to wherever it had came from.
Somewhere on the island, there would be others waiting to be found.
*****
Sitting with his back against a tree, Kane looked up at the blazing Myskata sun. It sat plump and high up in the sky, indicating that the day on the island was somewhere around half-way over. Throughout his travels he had come to learn that that normally only meant another three or four hours of daylight, and that he had little time to rest if he wished to get anything accomplished. Groaning at the thought, he wearily took another swig from his water bottle before returning to his work.
Spread out on the ground in front of Kane was a crude map that he had drawn of the island, with crosses marking the places where he had found the broken. So far today he had added four more. Three of his findings had been alive, but for the last one he had been too late, the body already having grown cold when he had chanced upon it in a shallow ditch. Once upon a time he had made efforts to properly farewell the dead, even going so far as to dig shallow graves and mumble a few words of respect. Now, though, Kane knew that so many more of the creatures lay waiting for his hands of healing, and dared not waste time on such spiritual indulgences. He would simply break their bonds and scamper off in search of the next broken, knowing that there would inevitably be more waiting for him.
Because there was always more. Always.
Kane folded his map and put it into his pocket, then drew out a small notebook from his backpack. Carefully he flicked through to most important page; the page which contained everything which Kane had learned about Myskata. Slowly and methodically, he began to read over his handwritten facts for what must have been the hundredth time, hoping that somewhere amidst them lay the key to the island’s secrets.
- I first came to Myskata on the 12th December. I went to bed in my home but woke up here
- When I actively think of Myskata I am brought here again. When I return to my normal life I have physically been gone. Myskata is a reality
- There are creatures here called the broken which are being tied in vines that are poisonous to them. I hear their cries when I leave Myskata. When I touch the vines they break and the broken are freed. If I don’t, the broken die.
- I have not seen any creatures on Myskata besides myself and the broken. We are alone together.
For a few moments Kane mulled over the points, before closing the book and hiding it back in his bag. It still didn’t make any sense. He had made so many journeys now, yet Myskata seemed determined to remain forever a mystery, never daring to give him even a hint lest he tear back its enigmatic layers. Even the proper title of the island itself was unrevealed to Kane, with the name “Myskata” just something he had dreamt up himself. There was no true knowledge or understanding; just days of blindly searching, and creatures that for some reason needed him as their saviour. Thinking about that, Kane gave a dry laugh and spat on the grass.
“Saviour”
There were a number of reasons why he kept coming back to Myskata. On one hand, he did want to help the broken, and felt genuine pity at their plight. Each time he heard one of their cries something seemed to tear inside him. At the same time, though, Kane was also painfully aware that one of the key reasons he kept returning was because he had nothing worthwhile back in the real world. His last job had made him redundant half a year ago, leaving him aimless and broke in a depressed economy. Already an introvert, Kane had drifted away from those few people that he knew, spending most days pointlessly floating around his apartment. Sometimes he would not even bother to crawl out of bed. The world had no use for him, and consequently, he found himself turning his back on it, drifting further and further away from any sort of meaningful existence. Then, one night he had fallen asleep and everything had changed.
When Kane’s eyes had closed the last thing they had seen was the cracks in his ceiling. When they opened again, he was sitting in the middle of a Myskata field, face-to face with one of the broken and their enslaving vines. Ever since that day his life had followed a similar pattern. He would be asleep in his apartment, and suddenly he would start hearing the moans of the broken filter into his dreams. Once that begun, Kane would cast aside the banality of his everyday existence and return to Myskata, pushing himself to make some sort of difference. Saving the broken gave him a sense of purpose – something he hadn’t felt back in the real world for so long – and he used that to spur himself into action. There were creatures relying on him, and he could not afford to let them down. Once arriving in Myskata, though, such energy would slowly start to dwindle as he came upon broken after broken without discovering any worthwhile remedy to the problem. No matter how much effort he exerted he never seemed to even make a dent in the number of captives. It was then that words such as “saviour” would start sounding very hollow indeed, and Kane would find himself where he was now: tired, frustrated, and just about ready to crawl back to his miserable earthly existence.
Shielding his eyes, Kane looked back up at the sun once more. There was less than half a day left now. Taking one last sip of his water, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and tried not to think about how heavy it was as he begun jogging towards the far side of the island.
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