Spade 10:2

I try to run but the wind picks up with a fury that matches my desperation.

Damn, even the elements are against me.

I feel the wind clawing at me trying to get a grip, like thousands of ghostly hands frantically pulling me away from my shelter. And then it does. Like a rag doll I am lifted off my feet and pushed by the sheer power of Mother Nature some thirty feet through the air into the side of an abandoned car.

Pain shoots through my body and I hear his snake-like voice slithering its way through, "I can make it stop. Just release me and you can walk out of here. You don't have to do this alone."

I shove his goading aside and through the howling wind I can hear the faint sound of wood splintering and the cry of steel bending as I watch a massive billboard sign that says "Jesus Saves" come crashing down on the very spot that I was standing at only a moment before the wind decided to relocate me.

I look at the billboard. Where were you the last time I needed you? I think to myself.

"Where, indeed?"

His mocking tone makes my stomach turn.

CRACK!
Lightning flashes and lights up the entire area and I can see one of them standing between me and the collapsed billboard. His leathery cloak looking almost untouched by the gusting winds.

There were two of them. There are always two of them, they travel in pairs. I look around in a panic. Where is the other one? Then, I feel a clawed hand come from behind me, tighten around my throat and squeeze the breath from it.

Now I know! It lifts me off the ground and turns me to face it. The nails of its leathery hand dig into my neck and I can feel a searing pain spread outward from them. Poison? It must be seeping into my skin from its grip.

Some things different, I can no longer feel the wind or hear the raging storm like I could only moments ago. I know it's still there though, the trees are still whipping around and the street lights are swinging violently. Tons of lose debris swirls around us as it lifts me closer, to a face so distorted and grotesque I suppress the urge to wretch.

My spine straightens with small cracks and pops that reverberate through my body as my full weight is lifted from the ground. Should I tell it how much I needed to have my back popped?

It speaks with a voice that sounds like someone continuously crumpling paper. Its breath carries on it the stench of decay and molded dirt.

"You will come back with us to finish what was started"

"I am finished", I proclaim as defiantly as I can muster but, with its hand around my throat I sounded rather pathetic.

But still. He didn't like that, I laugh to myself as my body slams down on the pavement and once again I can hear and feel the full force of the storm. Ow, pain... when... I breathe. I must have cracked a rib when I landed.

I look up to see the creature step down from the hood of the car is was perched on, the same one that the wind had thrown me into only minutes before. It's massive body blocking out the maelstrom behind it.

Moving quicker than I could imagine for its size, it steps forward and kicks me in the chest. I go flailing into the air only to be caught by the wind and slammed back down on the asphalt.

My ribs are defiantly broken now. Pain spreads out from almost every nerve ending in my body at once. I feel my mental antagonist recoil to the back of my mind, he must have felt it too…

I can taste that familiar coppery flavor flooding my mouth as I cough up too much blood for there not to be something seriously wrong with my insides. I've got to get up, they can't take me back. They'll just use me, or rather you, like a weapon again if they put that suppression collar back around my neck.

“Good times again!”

I press myself up on all fours and see that my hands are in a pool of my own blood.

Not again. Not like last time, I think as my concentration starts slipping. My vision blurs.

“You have no choice. You’ll have to fight them if you want to live. Why don’t you loosen my bonds or just set me free. There’s no need to burden yourself with all this worry and guilt, Its not your fault what happened back then, you had no control over your situation. I can make the pain go away. ”