Damien awakes once again, startled. Anxious and in a panic, but this time, it was not about being late. This time, he was sitting in a rotten and mouldy cell, on a broken and foul chair, arms clamped into cuffs which were embedded into the table in front of him. Before him were two royal guards, one was guarding the exit to the cell, whilst the other was in the chair across from Damien.
The guard sneered at Damien when he saw him awaken. Standing up, the guard drew his sword, holding it a few millimetres away from Damien’s neck, giving him enough of a jolt to wake him up fully. The guard smirked at Damien’s reaction, holding the sword high above himself in the hair then driving it down with tremendous force into the table, lodging the sword in the table.
The royal guard’s bushy moustache brushed off his bottom lip when he spoke, and he spat when he yelled. He interrogated Damien about the how’s and the why’s of his being on the ship. “Who are you?”, “Why were you on t’at ship?”, “How’d you get upon that ship if you’re so poor, as you say?”
All the questions he asked about Damien answered were never enough for the guard. Each answer given, no matter how detailed, made the guard grit his teeth so loudly that it echoed through the barren walls of the dungeon. Any idle chatter between the cellmates was hushed as they listened in for the new showdown that was to happen, like a new story being heard through a radio.
It wasn’t until the last question, the royal guard threatened him with, that Damien found himself concerned about his fate. “Your arm is t’e curse of a demon! You’re with the cultists, aren’t you?”
Looking at his right arm, that he so often either kept wrapped up or under his sleeve, it was exposed for all to see. It bulged a dark red, far more muscular than the left. Where his veins would be, thick black lines replaced them, seeming to ooze a demonic blood like liquid around his arm.
This was his arm. He had learned that whoever looked at it would look down on him and cast him out, so that’s why he covered up. He wasn’t sure exactly why he was like this, but he knew not to get angry, or the arm would influence his actions and turn him toxic, then rabid, then bloodthirsty. This, he had found through personal experience. His parents never spoke of it, and when he would ask them they’d turn their head in an attempt to feign ignorance, but their faces filled with shame.
There was a legend that when he was a child, there was this lost city high up in the mountains of the island. The residents prayed to The Creator, the very being that created the realm in which they live. And like any other story of meddling humans, one day The Creator turned upon humanity.
However, before he could do so, the monks of the Magestry combined their powers to destroy him. This only caused fragments of The Creator to burst and cover the entire realm upon his death, and whomever the fragments touched grew dark and demonic. He believed this to be true, as there was no other explanation handy, and his parents had not told him otherwise.
All Damien really knew is that his arm was not his, but even moreso he was not a cultist. He refused once again to the royal guard’s demands. The royal guard’s moustache twitched. He lay his hand on the hilt of the sword and pulled it fiercely, dislodging it from the table, and turned to Damien.
“We ought to have killed every one of you cultist scum on the boat… The commander won’t miss just one of you, especially if they’re a lying piece of sh- “
Suddenly, the roof collapsed in the hallway of the dungeon, almost sealing the guards and Damien inside. Both the guards rushed over to the cell door and swung it wide open and rushed out.
The rumbling continued, then crashing, followed by swords being unsheathed and screams of dozens of men from the cells. Damien was writhing around in the chair, trying to free himself from the table. Everything had been nailed to the ground. The sound of giant footsteps could be heard moving closer and closer towards the cell door, and Damien was trapped.
“Psst, hey. Over here!” Came a loud whisper from behind Damien. Damien stiffly turned his head the best he could as the voice came from his blind side. A lowly thief shifted up to Damien’s side and picked the lock on Damien’s cuffs, beckoning him to follow. Following the thief and the rest of the prisoners towards the exit, where they all now stand, face to face with an enormous demon intent on consuming everyone in the fort.
While everyone was escaping, Damien stood at the fort entrance and watched as the demon destroyed the courtyard and killed all the guards that dared to fight them. The same symbol of the cultists was burned into the flesh on the demon’s back, it tore into buildings with ease as it threw men into the distance. Damien noticed the guard captain’s sword and shield lying half scorched on the ground. He looked back to see the line of all the inmates escaping, but he felt guilty about letting the guards die, didn’t he?
“Nah, they unrightfully arrested me, with brute force. I’m not only injured, but have been imprisoned for interrogations with threatening methods. Their methods are out of hand, and they deserve their fate.”
>> NEXT
“Yes, I would. What happened over the course of the past hours doesn’t define all of them. From what it appears, the person who arrested me is already dead, and the rest of the guards weren’t even involved in my arrest. Plus, it’s my duty as a former soldier to lend an experienced arm.”
>>NEXT
Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
jinxlgamez
Leighann Paige
