Part 3

Finally i now have the third installmant of the Epic

Miaka wakes from a sleep that seemed as long as the ages her vision is cloudy and doubled and her head hurts worse than that time after the love parade. She tries to sit up and get the scope of her surroundings she can hardly remember where she last was or why her ribs feel as though they have been replaced by burning hot twisted metal. As she begins to rise from the bed she finds she is restrained tied at the feet and her hands bound together with cable ties, she wonders why she didn’t notice before; the ties are so tight that her wrists are bleeding. slowly she struggles to a sitting position her hands being behind her back and her ribs obviously broken she doesn’t even attempt to free her feet instead she looks around the gloomy room noticing for the first time a faint smell of old smoke like that of decades of wood burning in an open fire, the only thing stopping it reminding her of Christmas in her childhood is the lack of the smell of pine from the freshly cut tree and the presence of a sickening smell similar to that of an abattoir. As her vision clears, she sees she is in a hunting shack its wall adorned with the stuffed testaments to years and generations of hunters who have used the shack. Miaka's heart inflates in a way that seems unimaginable in a place such as this at the sight of her beloved Kyo, lying on the floor shoeless and shirtless with cuts and bruises across his smooth body. She is so overwhelmed that she doesn’t notice the rope binding him to a point in the middle of the room. Suddenly it all comes flooding back, the flight from her home, getting lost in the bleak cold of the mountains, Kyo’s angry erratic driving and her strangely familiar rescuers all of a sudden she wishes she could wake up from this terrible dream. It had to be a dream where else would you meet batman and wake up bound and bloodied, she clings to this weak mental farce as long as her rationality will allow her, which is just long enough to make her break into tears. Kyo rouses suddenly aware of his girlfriend being awake he implores her to silence, "Miaka, calm down, they went out but if they find you awake they might..." Kyo breaks off a look of pain and suffering in his eyes Miaka had never seen before; he regains his composure and continues "just calm down ok? now can you get out of those?" Miaka's strength returns as she’s overcome by joy at seeing her boyfriend alive and seemingly ok "where were you...the car crash I was trapped how did we get here? Where is here? why are we tied up?" her voice becoming more panicked as she remembers more and more of the event leading up till not and noticing the gaps in her memory. "Calm down Miaka can you get out?" says Kyo "I’ll tell you later for now can you get out?" Miaka takes her first good look at her bindings her feet are tied by thick corse brown rope it itches and stings, its so tight it has skinned her ankles raw, she then notices her skirt is torn and an intense pain between her legs "Kyo, what happened what happened to me?" she asks in a panicked voice a look of terror gripping her face "Don’t worry not now we have to get out of here" replies Kyo. Miaka notices tears welling in Kyo’s eyes and the straining of his voice, she watches him climb to his feet straining in agony, he moves towards her. Miaka pushes her fears aside inspired by her boyfriends courage, she leans forward and inspects the lashings on her feet, she suddenly realize she knows nothing about knots as she tries to figure out the tangled mess of brown confining her to the bed, she bites back against the pain in her ribs as she leans forward to bite at the knots trying to loosen them with her teeth. They taste dirty and all of a sudden contemplates what exactly hunters use rope for, she pushes the image of hog-tied game from her mind as she feels the knot loosening, her teeth ache and bleed she remembers hitting the dashboard face first and though it seems irrelevant given her current situation hopes that she hasn’t lost any of her teeth. The first knot gives way and she turns her attention to the second pausing briefly to wonder why it is so easy to free herself. Kyo meanwhile is labouring at his own restraints with less success than his girlfriend, his arm seems useless and is gripped by pain but he continues to tug and tear at the rope ‘I don’t care’ he says to himself 'I’ll do anything to get those guys, anything to not see that again' he starts to choke up again before turning his pain into anger as he tears the steel ring to which he was tied from the wooden floor boards which have weakened with age, he hobbles across to his girlfriends side embracing her as best he can with his hands tied, trying in vain not to hurt her. He looks around for something sharp to free them both with then realizes that the plate of metal that held the ring to the ground was still lying in the middle of the room, he retrieves it and begins to hack at his girlfriends bindings using mostly his good arm, each attempt causing more and more pain, finally he cuts through the last strand and turns to Miaka "Can you stand?" he asks "I think so" she replies slowly swinging her legs off the bed she moves her weight to her feet and stands slowly wincing in pain. All of a sudden her legs give out as a stabbing pain erupts in her stomach, she falls like a limp like a doll onto Kyo's shoulders he braces and reaches up to support her "are you alright?" he asks panicked "yes its just... my stomach, it hurts...my god .." she breaks off, panic once more gripping her face, she thinks back just a few short weeks, it feels like forever now to when she first found out, for most 19 yr old girls it would have meant the end of life as they knew it but she felt unusually calm. Kyo had been so supporting, he was going to marry her as soon as he could afford it...once they had moved out together. Yeah he was so... caring, so responsible, sure he acted immature but when it came down to it he was years older than his face showed, he was what all girls wanted and he loved her. Her parents had not been so accepting, she remembered the fight, those awful things she said, how she wishes she could take it all back, and how she wishes that the last things she might ever say to her parents weren’t those words. She comes back to herself and stands back up she has to get out, she won’t let her parents think that’s how she really felt, and she begins to stagger to the door supported by Kyo. It is only now she notices his arm is broken, the look of pained resolve on his face gives him the look of not a suburban kid in his early twenties but a veteran of great trials like something out of an epic war movie, she is grasped by mixed feelings of nurturing and awe as she sees him put away his pain for her sake, they reach the door and struggle to get it open. No wonder her ropes were so easy to escape she could see no way through even if they had an axe, hell even if one of them could swing it, it was made of solid redwood. Kyo looks around for some keys or anything to help. He sees nothing except the tools by the fire and the fire itself, for a moment he contemplates setting fire to the shack to get out but realizes they would most likely die, and if they didn’t a fire in a snowy area is rather noticeable even to the retarded redneck hillbillies who left them here. He is griped again by his anger towards them, he wishes for a second that they would show up before they escape, 'Lets see how strong they are when I’m not tied up' he thinks but he knows its just the anger talking how could he fight with tied hands and a broken arm even with his one good arm, to fight would hurt his broken arm. Miaka suddenly takes her weight off him and heads slowly for the fire place grabbing the poker and sticking its tip in the fire, "When that heats up use it to melt the bindings on my wrist" she says with a strength Kyo did not know she possessed, he walked over and after a short time retrieved the then glowing poker from the glowing embers and melted the ties from his girlfriends hands, she then untied Kyo using the rope and a piece of wood from the stack beside the fire to splint and sling his broken arm. "We should look for some warm clothes if we are to leave" she says, looking around and spotting a closet, she heads over returning with bright orange hunting vests "These safety vests are all they have, they will make us easy to find but at least they are warm and waterproof", she helps Kyo put his on with his good arm coming out one sleeve and the other being hidden behind the vest she puts her own on and says "I have an idea the wall at the back of the closet is thin I’m going to try to punch through it with the poker”. Kyo at first tried to help but she could see he was tired and the pain in her ribs was subsiding. They weren’t broken after all, she felt so pathetic over acting like that when Kyo had endured so much without complaining. "Just sit by the fire and regain your strength we will need it," she said. Kyo, worn from the beatings he had endured and fatigued by the pain in his arm didn’t object much and allowed himself to be seated by what remained of the fire. She laboured for what seemed like hours slowly knocking one panel at a time until there was enough room to crawl out, finally they were free but all of a sudden looking out across the bleak wasteland of dormant trees and snow her freedom seemed a little crueller than she had ever prepared herself for “Now this bleak hell hole that was so depressing may just be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen" she turned to Kyo and said with tears in her eyes "Are you ready my love?" Kyo, rising from his spot beside the fire replied, "For you, I’m always ready"...

Written by Shane