Chapter VII, Pt II

The Captain tried to bring his sword down on the Child to no avail. It struck an invisible wall, so hard that the sword and his whole arm vibrat'd from the impact. His sword, a big monster of a blade, clatter'd uselessly on the ground as he was suddenly lift'd by an unseen hand, and just like that, his head was gone in a miniature eruption. The body dropp'd like a dead-weight, discarded like a piece of trash. The Child's attention was on the boy now.

This was the moment of truth, and whatever sense of duty the boy had, was now dissolv'd. It was if the Child's gaze had stripp'd everything away from the boy except bare instinct.

Run.

That was what every fibre of his being was saying.

Run.

But he couldn't. He was frozen solid on the spot. Then she felt it, the fatal move of a step that let's you know immediately, that aye, he is in fear. It was the backstep, oh that fatal backstep. Now the Child would make her deadly move.

It was his turn to float into the air again, such a plaything, a healthy pleasure for being destroy'd. He was suspended in the air with an iron-grip on his crossbow. Aye, the crossbow, she heard him thought. There was a sliver of his rational mind left, just a small inkling of it that was enough to raise his arm and pull the trigger. It did not fire the bolt. The bolt was stuck, jar'd within. However, such a thing did not matter. His fate was seal'd long before then. The shot was only to humour him, it could do no real damage.

And then he felt it. It was an electrifying sensation that flash'd in his body from his feet, up. This was something interesting to be felt, it was extremely agonizing, yet it somehow had a sense of pleasure imbedded within it. It was everywhere on him, that flash of agonizing pleasure; his skin, his muscles, the very bone of him. It was a peculiar thing to feel, that such pain of extreme measure could spill into the thresholds of other sensations. As one feels so icy cold, that the difference between fire and the same ice meant nothing, or that something was so heat'd, that it felt the same as being frozen.

It struck high, all the way into the inside of his head, yet it want'd to go further. It press'd all against his head in every kept on, he felt beads of sweat trickling down his face. The pressure was too much, he felt his head would give way any moment now.

Suddenly, she felt his whole body go numb, and the vision ended in pitch black.