Thou Premonished…Beware the Hundred Handed

Holly and Faith ran, ran, ran for all they were worth, and then some. The clanking and yelling followed them no matter where they ran or climbed or hid. “StupidStupidStupidSTUPID,” cried Faith, lagging just a breath behind Holly.

Not even having the air to answer her “shut up!”, Holly dodged the tree limbs and roots, the rocks and drops of land as she raced along. She couldn’t see far, the leaves of the trees slicing apart what light from the moon there was. Her face was a tattoo of bloody welts, crisscrossing in abstract intersecting lines, and her arms and hands were no better. Faith looked the same, the one time she was racing beside her, but she was wearing shorts and her legs looked…Holly gagged at the thought. She ran.

100 stones through the air, crashing around the two, nicking and gouging them. 100 more followed, smashing into body parts already at the breaking numb stage. 100 eyes, 50 pair, tracked the movements of the two that fled, as the Hecatonchire crashed after them, plowing the earth in its quake. Gyes took out its’ swords, the 100 for the Hundred Handed, the short and long, the double and serrated edged, the barbed and hooked and curved, and let out a piercing scream that you would swear would cause any animal in a siriometer to flee for its life.

It did spur Holly and Faith to find a renewed pace, as their hearts gripped them in desperate fear.

Faith wanted to cry. She wanted to just drop, but she couldn’t abandon Holly. Everyone else was dead. The monster killed their parents, her boyfriend, the professors and their friends. It emerged from the cave so fast, so utterly savage. It had all these blades, and they swirled so fast and cut so deep. Body parts flew all around and only a few had time to utter a scream, or tried to run. Holly and Faith were holding fort by the camp, bored with the whole idea, wanting to go home. They were dragged kicking and screaming the whole way.

Now they were running and screaming away. The tried to get to the cars, but the damned thing cut them off, and they had no choice but to run in the opposite direction. Faith couldn’t get the sound of the whirling whooshing cutting of air sound the monster made, the blades cleaving the air in its attempt to get them. It almost did, twice. The first time just as they jumped off the ledge into the lake. Not a far jump, but enough to cause the thing to stop.

Holly and Faith swam to the other side as fast as they could, not a large width at all but it felt like miles. Rising out, sodden, they looked back to see the thing sheath the swords and start making it’s way down to them. That was hours ago, when it was still light out.

The second time it almost got them was when they hit the line of trees, thick closely grown together trees that had wide enough spaces for the two of them, but not many that would accept the size of the thing after them. This time is was rocks and stones, and the trees at first saved them. Faith in shock laughed that the Ents saved them, and Holly slapped her out of her descending madness. They raced on, but not as fast, with not as much wind, with very little hope.

Gyes sliced the hindrance before it. The tree that had stood for hundreds of years became splinters. As did the next one, and the next. Tall or thick, it did not matter. Gyes only had one thing driving it, and the quarry was getting closer. Slash, stab, thrust at a speed and ballet-like beauty, the Hundred Handed smiled through deadly teeth as it made it’s way forward. Gyes only had one purpose, to guard it’s charge. They had their warning, and did not heed it. It had been engraved above the rock warren: “Thou Premonished… Beware The Hundred Handed.”

Holly tripped and began to fall. Faith tried to catch her, but their combined momentum sent them both down. Both winded, with no wind left. Holly began to cry dry tears. She clawed her way up a tree trunk, and reached down to grab Faith.

Faith saw Holly’s arm fly off into a hundred pieces, the blood splattering the air and Faith and the tree..and the swords. She screamed, back peddling the way, shoving her fist into her mouth to stiffle the scream as she saw her sister cut into a hundred hundred bits. She saw the too many heads smile in unison, she saw the blades and the arms arc their way through her younger sister, the good child, the good girl. Sliced and diced, like those they only caught glimpses of from the camp site.

Faith whimpered, biting into the hand that was in her mouth, causing more blood to foam. She defecated and urinated, unable to control any part of herself. Her eyes were near bursting with the fear that her heart and stomach were pumping out. Fell into complete darkness as the shadow of the thing blocked out all moon light.

Gyes came forwards, raising its arms its swords its laughing to the sky, opening itself up so it could return to the cave…

A huge scythe sliced through the middle of Gyes, now separating the Hundred Handed. Gyes fell in two parts, its top half barely missing crushing Faith. She was still shaking, still whimpering, still biting her hand, when she passed out.

It was dawn light when she became aware again. There was light in the sky, enough to see. Faith moved her hands in front of her. No blood. No cuts. She raised herself was only fixated on what she could see of herself. Except for tears and rents in her clothing, and feeling her face, she was unmarred. Tears swept out of her, running down her face, as she remembered Holly and the others. She looked over where Holly had been..where Holly had been..where there was a giant of a being standing, looking down at her.

Colorless, but holding all the colors coalescing so it hurt her head to look upon this…man? She stood up, afraid but not, but more afraid when she took in the giant sized whopper of a scythe.

“I am Cronus,” the words came to her, not spoken out loud but known all the same. “You and yours freed me from an eternity of imprisonment and despair. Gyes left me alone too long, so blindly following its command. Gyes was the stupidest one of the three Hecatonchires. Deadly, but ultimately stupid. Stupid to leave me unattended for so long.  Stupid to leave my tool so close at hand. He could not stand up to the sickle which had once separated heaven and earth.  I am free, and that…” he nodded to the two halves, “is not.”

“What are you?” she asked, more out of nerve and trying to hold herself together then really wanting to know. This was almost too much for her to handle, and she felt herself slipping away, but she couldn’t allow herself to do so.

Cronus looked down upon Faith. “I am the first of the Titans, their ruler. I overthrew my father and created a Golden Age, but I was betrayed myself. It is time for revenge.” Peering down and into her, he knew.

“Faith, it is your time for revenge as well. I could heal your wounds, your fouling of yourself, but I can not bring your family back.” Her tears stopped as he said this.”You are their champion, Faith. Be mine as well.”

She knew her answer. She spit upon Gyes twice, both halves, and walked over to join Cronus.