A+Puppet's+Insides

A Puppet's Insides
I can't say for certain the exact moment I began to fear for my life.

I had lost my family, clan, and home all in one fell swoop of a mighty orcish horde. I had lived, as had several others of my clan. So we traveled some few days to the village of my mother's cousin. They took us in with welcome arms, and embraced us as their own. The chieftain himself welcomed me into his home and made a place for me. I had a family once more, and a home and clan.

It was only a few decades later when I would lose them again.

The orcs swept through our village like wildfire, burning and spilling the innocent blood of all in their path. I did not despair, however, for I had grown tall and strong. I fought like a bear, throwing the whole of my unbridled strength into the fray. The ferocious orcs tore into my body with their crude axes and thick, curved swords. I paid little heed to my wounds, cleaving through the thick of their masses like a woodman's axe through soft timber.

In the end, it proved only to be futile. The chief fell, and I was split up from the fleeing villagers. I shouted out into the night, choking on the smoke as our homes burned to the ground. There were only the replies of the screaming dead to answer me. Weary, blood-soaked and war-torn, I let myself fall into a dying man's slumber.

I awoke sometime later in a place I didn't know. Cursing harshly, I tried to raise my head, lift my hands, raise to my feet once more, but it was in vain. I was strapped upright to a tree, still smoldering. Through the thick of the smoke, I could make out skeletons of homes and people alike. Not all was burned after all, though I fought against the rise of hope in my heart.

A man stepped up to me, human and taller than any I had seen before, and dressed in thick black robes. There was evil in his eyes as he stared me down, like a butcher examines a lamb. But I was no lamb. I spat at him, cursed, and tugged against the thick leather thongs that held me prisoner. The man only nodded, as though in approval, and motioned with his hand for someone to join him.

A woman stepped up to me, elven and as lovely as the sun was brilliant. Her thick copper locks fell over her eyes and trailed long down her back like a cloak of crimson waves. When she was close enough for me to see her eyes, I knew she was not as she appeared. Where white should have been, there was only black, and her irises were an uncanny yellow. The color of puss and death. She smiled at me, and her skin cracked around her mouth, her teeth showing blood-stained and decayed.

She was one of the dead.

As she came closer to me, I knew no other fear in my life to have been so great. I swallowed down bile and let out a scream of panic and terror. Then, that foul mouth of hers clasped around mine and breathed into me a stench so rotten I could not help but find myself in the darkness of unconsciousness.

When I awoke, it was to the sound of my own voice, but I was not the one talking. I was in my body, that I was certain, for I could see the thin limned tattoo of a bear paw upon my arm through a clouded haze in my eyes. But I was not moving my arm, nor my legs. The sum of my entire body was being operated by someone other than myself.

I was a puppet, trapped within the walls of my own body. Controlled now by the powers of an ancient evil, I could do naught but watch as the monster who had taken me hostage began to play out the wickedness of his plans. I was a puppet.