#puppet knight

Any song recommendations are welcome.

Enjoy 😉

The sun was burning the back of my neck.

There was a tree a few feet to the left, with a cool shade below it, yet I could not force my feet to move out of the relentless heat. All of me felt like a butterfly, pinned down and waiting for my organs to be extracted.

It was my first experience with my curse.

A careless order by a similarly unaware cousin, as we were playing some game out on the courtyard. It wasn't his fault. I was just too good at tag, and he didn't realize the implications of telling me to Stop.

My parents found me near evening.

I was six when someone told me that my powers came with downsides. That no one could be allowed to move faster than light. Not without precautions.

I don't know why I'm thinking about this now. The sun beating down on my neck must be bringing back memories.

A sword came at my face, my hand jerked up to block it with my own. The blades clashed, nearly turning into another standoff.

I gave up on that, dropping the weapon on the ground. While my opponent scrambled, I put on a burst of speed, darting behind him and reaching my index finger right over his pulse point, all before he could blink.

When the burst ended, and everything shifted back to a normal speed, I proclaimed: "Dead."

Mitch's face twisted into a grimace and he dropped his own sword on the ground, stone grinding against stone, "Dammit. You cheated."

"It's pronounced resourceful."

His constructed weapons were already melting into the ground. Not fast enough; I nearly tripped over the malformed hunk they'd become.

"You should get better at covering your tracks," I said, hopping slightly to shake off my stubbed foot, "Can't have much of a quest if we get arrested for destruction of public property."

Mitch startled, "Wait, fuck, we're still doing that this year?"

It was the first year we were eligible for a quest. I'd really thought we were on the same page about this.

"Yeah. Obviously. Why wait?"

-----

Haaa I write original fiction too, you know?

I'm not still set on the names, and this excerpt is a little tightly packed to speed things along for the reader. But yeah, this is Puppet Knight, featuring my fear of my lack of control over my own life.