The Chains That Bind Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Our Giant Problem Just Got Bigger
We all looked dumbstruck as Kat simply looked around her somehow not noticing the battle going on around her. Even the giants were a bit surprised before repositioning their hold on their weapons.

“Kat,” Erika yelled. “Do something!”

“Right!” she replied as she took a second to concentrate. Before long a cloud appeared above her head and it began to manifest into the shape of a hydra. I didn’t really like hydras after an event a few years ago and they were tough opponents, but I was just glad it was on our side.

“Your imaginary beast does not scare us child of Hypnos,” one of the giants said as they both ran toward us weapons in hand ready to strike. The hydra ran toward the giant with the ax while Erika and I got ready to fight the one with the sword. “Yes demigods, run closer to your death.”

“I’m always running toward something,” I called as I dodged a swing and smashed my hammer against his leg. It only seemed to annoy him as he brought his sword down and it smashed into the ground next to me knocking me off balance. Erika on the other hand had willed some of the trees to shoot pine needles as the giant, but he had seen that trick before and managed to move out of the way each time. Kat didn’t seem to be fairing much better as the hydra’s head was chopped off. Two more took its place, but I could tell that Kat was having problems keeping her dream creature under control as with each new head, she need to concentrate more and more. As the giants ax came down on another head, the whole monster turned to smoke and Kat fell back as if being hit by some unseen force.

As Kat got back to her feet, she watched in horror as the giant came closer to her and started swing his ax around as if he was having fun fighting us. I couldn’t do much to help as I had my own problems avoiding the sword strikes of the first giant. She backed up as far as she could until she bumped into a tree and couldn’t back up anymore. The giant as if toying with her took a swing and chopped off the top of the tree about a foot above her head. As I heard Kat scream, I took a quick look back and a black cloud appeared above her head. From the cloud came pure blackness that spread around her and then covered the giant with the ax. The one I was fighting lost interest in me and simply looked on in fear as his companion was slowly consumed in darkness.

“Is that some kind of dream monster?” I asked Erika who was just as scared as the giants.

“No,” she said in a shaky voice. “It has to be some kind of nightmare!”

I had to agree as the blackness spread across the field. From the blackness I could hear the scream of the ax giant and say golden dust spew from the cloud. Whatever was in that darkness I didn’t want to know and neither did the giant as he took off running back into the woods.

“Kat, you can stop now, he’s gone,” I yelled trying to see if the blackness would stop but it didn’t and it kept going. “Erika,” I called to her. She looked at me as if trying to figure out what I was going to do and I wasn’t sure about it myself, so I did what I was good at. “I’ll be back in a second.”

I took off running into the blackness trying to find my way to Kat. As I ventured deeper inside the blackness I could hear screams and claw marks, the kind of things you hear when visiting a haunted house, but this wasn’t as fun. I had no idea what was real or was just an illusion created by Kat. It truly was a nightmare.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive  17:35, May 15, 2011 (UTC)