Skeleton (3)

It worked, but not very well. He had landed one meter behind the guards, his ability had taken the ropes with him, and he was one meter high up. His hands and legs were tied and fell onto the ground making a "Thump", noise.

Luckily it was drowned out by skeletons marching, he had maybe ten seconds before they would notice his disappearance, he had to make good use of it. He fumbled with his hands and legs until he was on his stomach. He then started using a jumping motion which propelled him forward with his face getting pushed into the mud

He disappeared into the darkness, but he didn't stop jumping until he was behind a wall. It was then that he heard the outroar, they had realised that their prisoner had escaped. Noah shivered behind the wall, sweating loads. He preyed that the skeletons wouldn't check the wall.

Ten seconds passed, then thirty, then one minute, then ten minutes. He realised that they wouldn't find him. He felt safe, or rather, safer. He was still in the crux of the ruins surrounded by other skeletons.

He took out his teeth and started grinding them against the rope holding his hands together tightly. After a solid 10 minutes they had broken, his teeth felt warm from the friction. It was easy getting the rest of his body free after that.

Now that he had a fragment of an illusion of safety, he thought about what had happened. He knocked into someone, and they attacked him when he had dropped his guard. Honestly, there was not much he could do versus such an opponent, but being tricked was something he could do without.

Noah thought out his plan, above him, there were rangers on almost every half-floor and rooftop. On the floor, there were parties of four or maybe five, intelligent skeletons everywhere, and for all he knew, they could be searching for him. And, he had no weapon to defend himself with.

He could only see one meter away from himself, apart from the small shining lights that signalled a skeleton. "Waiting until sunrise would only make this tougher for myself," he thought.

From the lack of lights, Noah figured that the skeletons were nocturnal creatures. If he saw them, they could see him. Sadly, if he couldn't see them that did not mean they could not see him. Noah scratched his head, there was practically danger wherever he went. 'Where should I go?" he thought to himself.

He aimed to stay within the ruins and avoid any open roads, there were too many ways he could get spotted. He decided to travel towards one direction and stick to it, it was moving away from the centre and towards more ruin packed spot.

The more ruins, the more ambushes. A double-edged sword. If he didn't abuse the element of stealth, the skeletons would.

After calming his thoughts, he began moving towards another wall, crouching. Slow and steady won the race, at least until he got spotted. If he would become a rabbit and skit away without a care for steadiness.

A voice, raspy and dark, protruded from behind the wall he was closest too. It was followed by a cackle of laughter, bone hitting bone. "They can speak!" Noah thought the revelation had caught him off guard.

The wall in front of him was severely broken and uneven, he decided to climb it. But, before he did so, he looked around for any archers there was two in his sight. One three o'clock and the other one ten o'clock, they were twenty and thirty meters away, respectively.

Instead, he climbed to the half-floor where a wall guarded off their sights, he slowly peered down the edge, the spot he heard the voice from. Three skeleton guards, one on his knees banging his hands against the floor.

One of them leaned back laughing his ass off, and the third one was telling jokes. They wore a full set of metal armour, it looked too big for them, but what didn't. They were bones.

"Guys, guys guys. Why did the skeleton start a fight? Because they had a bone to pick", the skeleton joked.

Sadly, jokes can very easily divulge into a fight. Especially, when the repercussions of cutting someone's hands off were none.

"Where do you imprison a naughty skeleton?"

"Where"

"In a rib cage"

"Woah, that's not cool. My friend Kel is imprisoned by the rival clan, they put him into their bone cages"

"Come on, it's just a joke. And, your friends probably already dead"

A deadly silence.

"You foulmouthed bone"

Swords went into the air, the skeletons brandishing them against each other. Whilst Noah couldn't follow the swords, he could follow the numerous sparks created by them. It looked like fireworks, the sparks moved left, then right in a never-ending fashion.

If Noah was shocked by their sheer strength. But eventually, one lost, their hand got chopped off and the sword flew off. It landed towards a bush close to Noah. He jumped off the building and grabbed the sword.

It was a lot heavier than he had expected, but it was still a one-handed sword. On the hilt of the sword, a skeleton hand attached to it. When Noah brought his own hand towards it and to detach it, the voice resurfaced.

"Wait, someone is touching my hand. Wait wait wait. HE IS WARM BLOODED!"

Noah froze, the bone hand had moved by itself and attached itself to him. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't get it off him. He heard the armour rattling and decided to run the opposite direction.

"He's running!"

He ran the opposite direction with full speed, the rabbit had become his spirit animal. He heard the rattling sound behind him, they were roughly the same speed as him. The sound from their armour was loud enough to attract other skeletons. An arrow flew by Noah's face and hit the wall behind him, he changed courses and ran toward another wall.

He had abandoned all stealth and focused on speed, the number of skeletons behind him gradually increased. Soon he had an entire army of armour clanging skeletons on his back. The skeletons behind him shouted.

"Catch the human"

He couldn't lose the skeletons until he got rid of the hand on his arm latched onto his arm. And he couldn't do that, he ran for it and hoped for the best. Whilst running he tried dragging the handoff with more force, the change in balance almost made him trip and on top of that, the arm held fast like an iron grip.

No matter how many walls he'd try to run behind, every now and then an arrow would fly by him. They barely missed, Noah's heart was beating wildly.

'level up'

"Not now" Noah furiously thought.

"Get twenty bones, he said, get twenty fucking bones," he said.

He had run to the edge of the ruins, the crowd chasing him had stayed the same, the skeletons in the outer rim were not quick enough to catch him. He was caught by disbelief, he saw Ferro and his party leaning against a tree sleeping.

"RUN" Noah shouted. In return he got no response, "RUN" he shouted again, he saw Ferro wake up. The hundreds of skeletons chasing him came into view and Ferro freaked out. He quickly shouted at his teammates to wake up, which they begrudgingly did.

They started running on the path leading to the city. The jokester of a skeleton shouted at them," I can barely look at you, I don't have the stomach for it"