Crash: A Short Story

Prologue: Crash There he was, Tobias Radner himself, laying down on the floor of his small, dirty room; a shaking mess of sweat and tears. The darkest parts of his past flooding through him. “You okay?” asked one of his crew mates, forcing Tobias out of the episode. It was all fuzzy, but Tobias was still able to faintly see around him, even if he couldn’t quite make out the man’s face. “Crash?” “Just… get me some patches,” replied Tobias, his voice that of a wounded animal. “I just- need patches… then I’ll- be fine.” “You know those are really bad for you, right?” the man tells Tobias, “How ‘bout you get up first, then I’ll consider it.” He lends Tobias a friendly hand, it takes a minute to register, but Tobias takes the hand gratefully.

He looks around, making sure he and Vek have at least some distance between the rats. But instead of distance, he finds that they are behaving… oddly; they’re all just standing there, waiting for there chance to attack. “Umm… why aren’t they doing anything?” Asks Tobias. “JUST PULL YOUR DAMN LEG OUT!” Wails Vek, well someone’s afraid of mice, Crash says to himself. He then grasps his leg, and yanks it out of it’s wooden sarcophagus. “Happy now?” “THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SARCASM! HELP ME KILL THESE FUCKING RATS!” Vek shrieks, yep, he’s afraid of rats. “Ya know your the only one here with a weapon right? Or well, at least one that won’t make a crater in the ship.” “Oh yeah… my bad,” Vek, his fear lessoning, draws his sword out of the metallic sheath covering his lower left side. “How do I always forget about this thing?” Vek goes berserk and runs to the first rat we saw, and then slashes it’s entire body in two, crimson stains the elegant sword. “I HATE RATS!” Vek throws his sword, piercing both the wall of the ship, and two of the rats. “DIE-” “Wait,” Tobias cuts off Vek, noticing a strange behavior in the rats. “Something’s not

But he quickly forgot about it when he noticed Talmiya is reading a book— actually, two books at once. “What exactly are you doing?” now he was the one asking the questions. Talmiya denied to answer, but instead closed her book, and waved her hand back and forth. Then suddenly, her hand ignited with a magenta flame, and she began some sort of spell. “Et cum hoc incantatores, resurrecturos homines isti sensu permoti,” chanted Talmiya, as she said it, the flame traveled to each of the dead rats. Then, all of a sudden, the killers were reanimated, their eyes glowing the same color as Talmiya’s hand. “Nunc ergo audieritis vocem meam, usque in finem!” All the rats bowed before their queen, their glowing eyes begin to fade to a natural black. But unlike the rats, Talmiya’s skin turns paler than before “What the fu-” began Vek. “They are- under command, that’s what- I wanted Hatchet to- tell you.” Said Talmiya, her normally smooth yellow body turning to a clammy grey. “Are you… okay?” asked Tobias, who was scared for the poor snake. “I’m- fine… I just need some- rest. You see, m-magic that p-owerful can r-really zap a- your will,” She answered, but Tobias had the nagging feeling that she was lying—As did