Expect potential updates/work on this later.
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He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see. The darkness was enshrouding him. Suffocating him as it pressed down, only the light from his rapidly flickering heartlight letting him see. But he had to keep running.
He couldn’t stop running.
If he did he’d end up like the rest. Like the Turaga, his friends, everyone else in his village.
He couldn’t let that happen.
He had to escape. He had to live, warn others of it. He needed a Toa, he had to find one, he couldn’t stop it . He couldn’t stop it. A Toa could. A Toa could!
Why couldn’t he find them? Why weren’t they here? He’d been running so long. Hiding, trying to live. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die.
The Turaga had said they were coming. That their island would have Toa.
They’d made everyone so excited, so happy. Toa were coming! Toa were coming! Everything would be good! But it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
He could remember what happened. When the ship washed up on shore. Listless… Cold… Death-like…
He could remember noticing the Turaga acting unnerved. Like something was wrong. And they’d only gotten worse when it came out.
It was twisted. Hunched. Injured. Its jaws in a permanent smile. A trail of red, seemingly wet in its appearance, stained the metal beneath its eyes. Its arms, limbs thin, disjointed in appearance, each tipped in claws, one as false as the machine dug into its spine, a hum emanating from it.
It looked like a Toa. It had their form. But it didn’t feel like one. It felt wrong. Cold. Dead. Dangerous.
But no one else noticed. They were too happy. A Toa had come! At long last a Toa of their own!
They were overjoyed, swarming it with excited chatter as it grinned, the Turaga hiding their wariness as it came near.
He’d wanted to believe that his fear was unwarranted. That the wariness he noticed from the Turaga was false.
He remembered sneaking onto its boat, looking for reassurance. He could remember the cold, the feeling of lifelessness, and the smell of death.
For every step he’d taken fear further consumed his form before he’d seen him, the Toa the Turaga had been speaking of. His body twisted, torn apart and rebuilt, metal torn and flesh ripped, the halves of his shattered mask embedded in what remained of his chest. Even his entrails tossed and knotted across his form as they held and highlighted its shape
He’d frozen, stuck in horror as he viewed the mutilated form of what was supposed to be their hero. It was not some mindless death, some animalistic show of power and anger, it was purposeful, shaped and gruesome in such a planned way it nearly seemed to be some attempt at art.
He remembered screams sounding from his village then, his form snapped back into motion as he ran.
He nearly froze again as he saw the corpses, Matoran twisted and broken, each kept whole and in the open, as if for later gathering, smelled the scent as it swept over the boat, and finally saw one of his Turaga, their body speared through the sword of their villages central statue.
He’d nearly been sick, barely keeping himself together as he stumbled down the boat, staring at his friends as he forced himself to keep from heading towards them in an attempt to see if any lived in his shocked state.
And then he’d seen it.
It emerged from a hut, slamming the door away as it dragged a Matoran out, their form limp and lifeless as he carried it in his clawed grasp, their head in his other hand as he lifted it to his face, blood pouring in a trail from their jaws and what remained of their neck, staining It’s hand as nearly seeming disappointed, tossing both the ground as it stared across the wreckage moving towards another corpse before spotting him.
He’d moved then, running, hiding, trying to live and escape as he searched and waited, praying one of the other Toa the Turaga had promised would come would arrive.
They hadn’t, or else he hadn’t found them yet. So he kept running, It was following, he knew It was, he’d seen it, heard it. Just flickers at a time, but It was there. It was there.
It had been so long, he couldn’t remember the days as his mind blurred from exhaustion, when he’d last slept for more than a flicker of time before being awoken in fear, when he’d eaten, drunk, as It followed, always catching up, always giving just enough away to alert him whenever he tried to so much as slow down.
But he couldn’t stop, he had to live, to survive, to avenge his friends and stop It from killing more.
He’d entered the cave system a long time ago, he could remember even less down here. The darkness limiting his sight, making him see things, be even more wary as he flinched at every flicker, every scrap of sound in fear of It having neared him.
It had only gotten worse when he’d been forced into the undeveloped tunnels.
They were a web of darkness, unfinished, unpolished, littered with pitfalls and tripping hazards he’d been lucky to avoid, each interconnected by the dozens as they remained unlit by all but his flashing heartlight as its pulses only further decreased in pattern as his hearts beating grew more and more erratic from his fear and fatigue.
A noise, a scratching like claws suddenly sounded from behind him, his body shuddering in a jolt of fear as his head snapped around in an instinctive motion he could no longer control, forcing his view into the darkness and away from his path, feeling as his foot smashed against an object, his body tilting before he could yank his head back around as he attempted to move to brace himself.
He smashed into the ground, skidding forward as he covered his face, gasping in pain as he turned himself over, attempting to catch his breath before hearing a quiet tap and just as quickly attempting to silence it.
He stared wildly his heartlight flickering faster as he attempted to cover it, weak trickles escaping from his fingers as he shook from his fear and lack of breath.
As no further noise was heard he calmed, praying and attempting to calm himself as he quietly drew in a rasping breath as he moved his hand, his heartlight suddenly illuminating a metallic chest to his view as he froze.
He slowly looked up, his sight switching between darkness and the torso, his fear forcing the light to flicker faster and faster before he reached It’s eyes, a familiar fanged grin and two glowing red pits show to him as it hissed out in a rasping voice, “Finally caught you, my run-away art piece.~”
.
If any beings had been near the tunnels entrance they would’ve heard a diminished scream of terror echo from within just as suddenly being cut short.