Chapter 2 - Bloody Memories

Like most of these shorts, this was a little something written to try and shift a mental block. Thankfully, it worked. ^^
Anywho, this is another Shadow Stalkers side story, this time with a character that I have used; Wingman Murfitt. Enjoy.
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Bloody Memories

Blood sprayed up the walls of the rickety cabin, dripping and sliding down the rough, barbaric surface onto what lay below. Screams loud enough to shatter glass pierced the night, then the same, dull wet thumping choked them, drowing them out in their owner's blood. A female Mule fell victim to the axe of the Bear, lying, twicthing on the cabin floor in the gore of her friends; A scene fit for an illegal horror movie. The Bear turned, as if looking into the camera, bloodied axe raised, and brought it down heavily, more blood spurting, more blows, more gore and more bone being split. There was no scream. The victim had no time to scream, even the ghost refused to scream, couldn't, seeing first person what the Bear was doing.

The skull crushing agony that insisted on accompanying every vision that Andrew Murffit, a Woodpecker of nine, had subsided. The grim scene of the butchered bodies faded to black. A blackness that numbed everything. Whispers in the distance. Whispers of worry, fear and panic. And his name was being called out, wanting him to be okay, pleading with him to be okay between words of what sounded vaguely like ''Mama's here, sweetie.''

He knew he had his eyes open. But he still didn't know why he couldn't see. The first time it scared him silly, to the point where he refused to go to sleep or to even be left on his own. But now, lying in the darkness, he was devoid of all emotion. Sirens in the near distance, closing the gap between him and them drew his attention away from the voices over head. Then bright light, a gasp of air that hit his lungs like hot liquid and his back arched violently, all muscles now free of the paralyzing affect the visions and darkness had on him, the bright summer sun burning his eyes, forcing him to blink hard and long. A cry of relief and the nine year old Woodpecker was pulled into his mother's bossom, her crimson plumage tickling his nose.

''You had me so worried.'' She whimpered before a pair of St Bernards in light green overalls took charge, shining more light into his eyes, checking his pulse and breathing and asking questions which his mother answered for him. He wondered what he had touched. It couldn't have been anything in his pockets. He kept nothing there; free of clutter for when his mother or father made him take his gloves off, so he could stuff his hands into his pockets, hiding them away from whatever memories lay embedded into whatever he had to touch.

But he had lost his balance on the wooden stairs in the open air shopping center, his hands flying out of his pockets to try and steady himself and receiving more than a backwards fall down the stairs when he touched the banister. A warm stickyness trickled down the back of his neck and he looked past the fussing paramedics and to the old stair case. It was made of recycled wood, said a placard.
''The cabin.'' He said hoarsely and then all emotion came flooding back, drowning out everything else, and Andrew found himself crying uncontrollably and not quite knowing why.

A paramedic reached for his hand and Andrew's small body went ridgid again as fur brushed against feathers when the Canine's sleeve rode up slightly, his eyes wide, watery eyes not seeing the present, but the near past. Bone stabbed through flesh and fur, staining red as a small Cocker Spaniel sat in the grass of a park, crying in agony as other children, some with parents and guardians, stood around her, watching the paramedics tend her broken leg as if it were some kind of show. Then darkness came again, this time pulling him under into unconsciouseness, the vision being the final straw, proving too much for him to handle.

Then he woke up, sweat slicking his crimson and gun metal black feathers to his body, hands tightly gripping his pillow, breath comming short, fast and ragged. Wingman Murfitt; Twenty eight years old, clairvoyant and pilot in the Shadow Knight's fifth squadron of space fighters. A Shadow Stalker since the age of eighteen, the name pulled from a vision he recieved from an old Pteredactyl as he helped the old man right himself after a fall on the street. That same year he'd made it to the planet Nuam and was enrolled almost immediately at the academy to train as a pilot, his life long dream.

Andrew rolled over onto his side, his girlfriend, a Corgi, lay next to him, distracting his chaotic mind with her generous curves, making him forget his childhood horrors and remember what had happened between them when she had finally come back planetside, relieved for three days of rest after weeks spent in the engineering department up on the Station. In a few hours he would have to get up for work himself, patrolling the edges of Shadow Space territory.

But for now, he would enjoy her beauty, remembering the passion of the night just gone at his own will and pace instead of it being forced into his mind like hot nails.

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