Is this the end?

As the fortress of the great city of Olive was annihilated, Kodesh was buried deep under a heap of debris. If things went according to plan, he could have been readying himself for the anointing ceremony but instead he was having a nightmare. Fate had plans of it own, terrible plans it seemed. He went to sleep last night covered in the embrace of warm blankets and now he was covered with a pile of bricks and roofing tiles.

Outside the sizeable grave of debris, there were men scouring the ruins in desperate search for him. And not far behind, an entire army was blazing like wild fire, engulfing everything in its path. He had to get out of the rubble somehow without drawing attention and run as fast as he could and as far away from the enemy as possible. Hiding under the rubble was only delaying the inevitable, his capture.

As he was contemplating his escape, his thoughts scattered and his vision blurred.

'No no no.'

'Not now please.'

On the brink of collapsing, Kodesh tried to move his body and pangs of pain stunned him. Looking at the source of the pain, his bloodied face grimaced at the gruesome scene. His right arm had snapped in two just below his elbow and it was barely holding by a few strings of skin. Blood was pouring profusely out the severed arm, threatening to knock him off unconscious.

Tearing off his coat with his left hand, he wrapped it tightly around the elbow. The bleeding did not stop, however, it was at least bleeding at a slower rate.

He was pondering about a lot of things all at once. Even way more than his mind could process and the deep emotions were too much for his heart to handle. Losing an arm is not something you can get over easily. Everything he does with his one hand will be a constant reminder of how abnormal he was. Well that was the least of his worries. He was mostly worried about the things he won't be able to do without one of his hands. Things like archery for example. How was he going to use a bow with just one hand? And there were a lot more basic things he was not going to do, which almost made him wail bitterly.

But he bottled his emotions because above the rubble, men were searching for him. And those men wanted his head. He had more pressing matters at hand.

A cloud of dust had delayed their search but soon rather than later, the cloud was going to dissipate like it never even existed before and when that happens, death will ensue. If he was going to make a run for it, now would be the time.

With a deep sigh, he carefully studied his surroundings and chose a path up the mountain heap. With one hand to rely on, the task was rather daunting for him. He barely managed to climb a castle earlier with both hands and now he was expected to use just one hand. It was like everything was just going downhill for the poor guy. Every bad situation he found himself in was getting worse and worse.

At least now he had something to step and support his feet onto, unlike when he was ascending the castle, where he relied heavily on upper body strength. However it wasn't as ideal as you'd think. Here and there, the rocks he stepped on crumbled at his weight, almost sending him to the ground.

Slowly and cautiously, he pulled his weight up until he reached the peak of the hill of rubble. It was an uphill battle to get there but nonetheless he succeeded.

In the cover of white dust, he disappeared into the streets.

"He has to be here somewhere." A grumpy, disembodied voice said as Kodesh was pelting down the street.

He had learnt that they were tracking him somehow. That's why the men went after him from the very beginning. And leaving his severed arm behind was his saving grace. The arm did more good to him than it had done his entire life when it was still attached to his elbow. It's scent led the trackers to believe he was still buried under the rubble.

The more distance he put between himself and his pursuers, his hope was starting to renew. But he didn't want to feel confident because whenever he felt that, something bad would happen without warning, or a bad situation would turn worse.

His amputated arm had slowed his pace down drastically but it wasn't all too bad, considering that there was no one currently pursuing him and no flaming arrow looming behind to skewer him. Without any immediate danger on his north bound journey, it was more or less safe to ponder about his life and where it was going. He knew it had gone south because every bad thing that could've happened had indeed happened.

Being anointed was his only way to possess divine powers. And there was only one seer left to anoint him. He knew the chances were rather slim to meet him again. Maybe he was already dead as we speak. One other thing that he was immensely worried about the seven deadly sins.

'How could they power the enemy so much that the gate was destroyed by just a knock?'

'And how did the seer not see this coming in advance.'

'Or is this fate.'

'Was I not supposed to be anointed.'

'If not, why am I chosen?'

'Why did the seer name me Kodesh at birth?'

'Why did he even name me?'

'Wasn't I supposed to be named by my parents?'

'Did he have a revelation before naming me?'

Without anyone to answer his many questions he cursed under his breath and took a quick glance over his shoulders and continued running with as much strength as he could muster. His name, means holy and he was named by the greatest seer of the past century. He didn't know what to make of this , but deep down he knew there was a hidden meaning to all this. A piece of a puzzle that would make everything make sense.

The other thing was that he felt the destruction was brought upon by the seven deadly sins and he had not stained himself with any of the deadly sins. He is a holy as the spirit. As clean as you can get and as white as an endless expanse of heavy snow. If anything, he is the spirit personified. That gave me him some degree of courage because he believed he might be spared for not indulging in the seven deadly sins.

As he was running, a sharp pain rocked his arm and he wobbled around. Talking about his arm, a few moments ago, the men had found Kodesh's severed arm and cursed to their gods. All swearing to sacrifice him alive to their gods. They were now in hot pursuit, quickly closing the gap.

Running with all strength, a thought of the men crossed his mind and as if it was a premonition, a flaming arrow head whizzed in his direction. With less than a second to react, Kodesh rolled to ground and the arrow narrowly missed his right shoulder.

'What did my right hand do to this people?'

The arrow missed what remained of his right arm and for a second he thought about amputating his shoulder.

'Maybe they will let me be if I cut it off myself since it seems they want it so bad.'

Without a second to spare, he lifted his weight up with his left hand and ran with all that was left in his tank, because the arrow struck a castle and now it was crashing to the ground, threatening to shatter Kodesh to death while also burying him. Though he was faster than he could ever dream of, the falling debris was even faster. Unlike him the debris was not exhausted and it's speed was gradually increased by the gravitational pull.

Lowering his head to avoid a brutal collision, he pelted down the street, loud thuds banging behind him as the bricks shattered on impact to the ground. Lowering his head even more, he leapt and rolled over, coming to a stop a few meters from the last of the falling debris. A cloud of dust and a shockwave rippled at Kodesh, almost like they were giving him a firm warning to never come that close to collapsing structures ever again.

Looking within the cloud of dust, he saw a small mountain of debris and he thought of how lucky he was to have not been buried under that mass. With no time to celebrate or to maybe catch a breath, he picked himself up and limped towards the north. He was panting convulsively, his legs were hurting, almost like he had both cramps and severe muscle pulls. His severed right arm was in tremendous pain. The desperate roll he made earlier had hurt his injury so bad that blood was pouring out again. What was even in a more sorry and desperate state was his lungs. They had caught fire and no amount of heavy breathing could help him. If he was just an average person, he could've long collapsed but his sheer will and resolve to survive had triggered high levels of adrenaline that kept him from losing consciousness.

However losing blood had its own dire consequences. He was starting to feel dizzy, almost like he would throw up. His vision was a blur and his already slow pace was drastically diminished. After a minute or so he could barely run, the best he could do was to jog. He was the first person to ever jog for his life. Exhausted and weak to the point of passing out, Kodesh somehow managed to soldier on. He wasn't going to let his enemies have their way with him.

He thought of hiding. What else would he do since his body had already reached its limit? But then dismissed the plan. They were tracking him with sensory powers so hiding was more like waiting for them to find him. Maybe they were sensing him because he was marked as chosen. People always gave him looks wherever he went. So if anyone can sense him then the Oaklanders can too.

By now the sun was slowly ascending in the horizon casting long shadows. His thoughts had been so slow that he had just noticed. The bleeding, tremendous fatigue and agony was slowly tearing him apart piece by piece. He was bound to succumb to the grueling and demanding task of escaping people who were a lot stronger than him.

With a reduced pace, his breathing began to slowly drop and so did his blood pressure. His adrenaline levels dropped as a result. The low levels of adrenaline posed a new danger of losing consciousness. He had lost a lot of blood, and that loss was going to catch up to him when the adrenaline levels drop beyond safe margins.

The question was, which was going to catch up with him first. His enemies or blood loss. Luckily for him he could kill two birds with one stone. If he could somehow find some strength to increase his pace again then his blood pressure would increase and adrenaline levels would rise and the distance between him and his foes would not shorten as quickly as it currently was.

With that thought he dug deep within his weak body and managed to find some bits of strength. It wasn't much but at least his pace slightly increased. The distance though, was still shortening at an alarming pace. Within a minute he caught a glimpse of them. They were closing in at terrifying speed.

On the bright side, the wall was just about 200 hundred meters away. The tall impregnable structure was towering well above the castles, making humans insignificant. The rays of the rising sun was already illuminating in the upper reaches of the magnificent wall.

Glancing back, Kodesh realized that the pursuers had now doubled. There were a dozen of them and now since it wasn't dark, he could glean more of their appearance. Or maybe they were drawing near. He dragged his weight as fast as possible. He had just a little above a hundred meters left to reach the wall. He was almost there. Just a few more minutes then he'd be safe. But a few minutes was an eternity and a hundred meters were a thousand miles. Not only that… How was he going to make it out of the wall? He was surely not going to climb that vertical mountain with one hand. Well maybe he had another plan but that plan will have to wait because his pursuers had caught up with him.

He clung tight to his pendant and uttered words in a form of a prayer. Will the prayer be enough to save him? A few seconds later he dodged a barrage of arrows and a few more seconds after he was on all fours, trying to crawl to the wall. He barely had strength to put much of a fight, let alone pick himself up. Surrounded and outnumbered he couldn't help but shiver.