A Savage Life
Chapter 31

The soldiers and cyborgs descended on me, and only me, and everyone else in the bar, poured their might into the army before me.

Blood and chaos reigned everywhere, even making my fight with Tarold an excercise in Video-Game-Obstacle-Avoiding. Particularly of the Violent-Alien variety. And many shed their human skin, save for Julien, who looked like the product of a human who had a three-way with a piranha and a wingless dragon. He made my efforts against Tarold look like a frightened toddler throwing a tantrum in comparison to the cyborg bits and blood spewing all around him.

My tactics with Tarold also boiled down to a failing kung fu match, with me losing and getting my arm snapped. I screamed out. I looked for help, with Readoldd busy fighting off ten soldiers who were all shooting at him, with one getting him in the shoulder.

I turn my fists toward Tarold and then slammed myself into him. Then I’m jumped by one of Tarold’s helpers and dragged behind the bar and Tarold slides over the bar and stands on my stomach and my broken ankle.

He pulls out a gun and cocks it, shooting the soldier who had me pinned down to the ground before taking the gun and shooting my knee out. Tarold laughed and said, “Try to run now Little Time Traveler.” Then he begins to torture me. People are too busy to notice me being cut, my bones being smashed. My teeth I’m having to spit out. I can’t see anymore but white flashes as I’m struck. My ears ring and I know there is an end to me. Then I hear a grunt and more cursing, a struggle. I can barely open my eyes, but I can make out Damien’s silhouette dragging Tarold off of me.

Then I feel him lifting me up and then the smell of alcohol. He forces open my mouth and drains it into me before busting the bottle open against the head of a cyborg before he’s thrown halfway across the bar. I swiftly join him. For once I’m being helped by Damien, my Worthless Amnesiac Pet Loon. Finally! He does something worthwhile instead of just running away and screaming and being overly problematic! Either way, my ears are ringing, but I couldn’t feel any pain. Be it the alcohol, or adrenaline, I felt the need to stand-And then swiftly fall to the floor because my body is shattered.

“Redelad!” Damien shrieked, butchering Readoldd’s name in an attempt to reach out for his help. Sadly, Readoldd was knee deep in cyborgs, just like Damien.

I watched the cyborg grab Damien and slam him literally through the wall. I gasped at the gaping hole and crawled away slowly. So slow a snail could have won a footrace against me. Then I scream as my hand is crushed. Not by a careless foot, no, but by, drum roll please, Tarold Greysing’s. He was just looking at me, blood pouring from an empty eye socket and cuts everywhere. Maybe even a bullet or stab wound, I couldn’t really tell from all the blood. Yet there he was with his hands on his hips like he had no injuries. Meanwhile, here I was on the floor like a maggot and spitting blood, and maybe my last tooth.

He kicked me in the face. He made me beg, “Why?”

I can’t ever recall begging in my life after I turned thirteen.

“Because you destroyed a high ranking official,” Tarold explained. “Sadie Reynoltz. Now I will take you in, and you will obey. You Neanderthals are always touchy when it comes to kidnapping.” Wow really? Did it take all day for him to figure it out? Or did he require a fricking scientist to determine that? For all I care, he could get lost in the Alaskan Bush! “Either way,” he continued. “You will be punished and you will enforce the life we have placed for you.”

So I’m a forced soldier, or what am I? Maybe Augustus will have answers because he’s the only one who’s mentioned what I am so far.

“Wench!” Tarold cried as he tossed the Mysterious Woman aside.

She grunted in pain and struggled to regain herself. There she was! My lifeboat! But it looks like my lifeboat is sinking and I’m so injured I can’t even help myself. I look at her. She’s finally to her feet, but her leg is turned in like a club foot. She’s leaning on a broken chair and making her way over to me. Behind her is Augustus, with Sasha in front of him, coated in blood, a soldier’s eye hanging out of her smiling mouth, and a severed arm in her hand. They’re making their way over, stumbling over dead bodies. Anybody who gets in their way is either shot by Augustus, or eaten by Sasha. I feel safe seeing them, but worried for Damien and Readoldd. Last time I saw them, they were covered in trouble. Augustus was only covered in bruises as far as I could see, but my back-up didn’t deter Tarold from shoving his boot in my face and blacking me out. I can only hope I’m not kidnapped.