Pain.  Fiery pain radiates out like broken wheel spokes from his shoulder.  He sucks in breath through parched lips and starts to cough from the smoke filling the air, eliciting an additional moan of pain from the broken ribs on the same side of the body.  Remembering the punishments for making the wrong sound at the wrong time, he stifles his coughs, smothers the half moan as he tries to move and the bones in his right foot and ankle grind against each other.

He opens his matted eyes, peering through swollen lids, tearing again at the smoke and pain combined.   Confusion reigns, as darkness permeates his vision, until slowly, he picks out points of light, embers of flickering flames from the ruins of the structure in which he lie, half buried in debris and ash.  “Carlos?” whispers from his tormented throat.  “Angie?  Katie? Sanjay? Anyone?”

The smoke hangs heavily, hardly any breeze in the hot summer air to blow away the stench and ash particles.  Gritting his teeth, he pushes some debris off his legs, nearly passing out from the pain.  He pauses, sucking breath through his teeth, trying to remember what had happened, where he was at. Fogged memory, faint through the pain, slowly gels and he thinks he is at Barnyard Setting.  If true, he and his friends have been here for about three weeks.   It’s not like the owners ever really let any of them out for a jaunt through the city.   But he knew which direction the customers had come in, assuming they hadn’t been moved at night again.

Right now he couldn’t remember anything distinctly but the flames, and that triggers  the blistering sensation of agonizing pain.  He vividly remembers seeing the flames, and excruciating pain as plastic restraints had melted into his skin, but there were no burns, nor plastic restraints any longer on his arms or legs.

He slowly begins to claw his way towards the remains of one wall; and even now with multiple broken bones, fear of punishment maintains primacy and the lithe boy suppresses his cries, although partially repressed moans slip out now and then, tears streaming down his face into the blackened ash upon the ground.

Perhaps an hour later, as he shivers uncontrollably in the heat of the night, he pulls his broken body over the collapsed wall, and no amount of fear quells the scream of pain from his lips, before he passes out again.

 Swirls of mist cloud his vision, but he could tell that he lies outside somewhere; he smells the wildness of the grass.  A faint memory of happiness and laughter tug at his mind, before the thunder of an approaching storm overwhelms his hearing.  Thuds echo through the earth, and inside he quails, knowing he has been found, but he still can’t see anything.

The clouds of mist carry the sound of several people speaking, as if they were right next to him.  Surely they must see him! Even though his only sensory perception is the grass sticking into his body, and still can’t see anything, they are nearly standing on him. 

“…..very strong.  Resilient, to have dragged himself so far in such condition.”

“Meaningless,” comes the gruff reply. “Untrained, out of control.  Beaten down.  Careless, causing the circumstances he finds himself in.”

“Everyone is untrained at some point.  He is barely a colt as his people calculate it, and survived years of abuse and torture already.  He may be broken, but obviously there is still a protective fire burning deep within.”

“We should not withhold aid, but not grant more than what he has pulled to himself.  Already damage done, but still some of the spirits await his survival.  If they are willing to assist, maybe he survives.  Maybe not.  Watch and see.”

Murmurs of agreement and finally the mist clears……

 

He crawls further from the ruins of the structure, pausing as he hears a snuffling cry of pain. He slowly turns his head, wincing from the pain, and sees a vague black shape collapsed on the ground.  “Carlos?” A litany of names cross his breath but no one responds besides the occasional whimper.

Swearing and sweating, he slowly crawls towards the shape.  Seems like agony filled hours as he moves his broken body across the twenty feet.  By the time he is almost there, he realizes the shape is a midnight black horse, but bloody and burned, lying there gasping.  Vague, hazy memories of a coal black horse with burning eyes flash through the pain in his mind.  He reaches out to the horse, placing his hand on an unblemished neck.

“There, there, boy.  I always wanted to see a horse,” he croaks in a whisper.  “Too bad you got caught up in this mess too.”  He pauses for a few minutes to catch his breath, but it is fading fast.  “This probably isn’t going to work,” he mumbles, shock clawing its way into his mind yet again, “I never tried anything like this before. No reason for both of us to die though.”

With a supreme act of will, and a screech of agony, the Elven boy grasps his non-functional left hand in the right, and moves it so both hands are on the dying horse’s neck.

Murmuring, “run with the wind,” a glowing blue light leaves his hands, jolting into the horse.  Perhaps five seconds pass before the glow fades and the child collapses face first into the hot, ash covered dirt.