Flashback Trouble in Windward Boardwalk

[Itchytell]

81st of Spring, 510
Age:14
It was a pleasant day to go the park. Pleasant, for a Vantha at least, for the skies withheld their usual sprinkling of snow for a while, to lets its victim’s breathe. A white blanket of snow covered the entire park giving it a very clean and pristine look. There was an audible crunch of the snow as Itchytell walked in Windward Boardwalk, displacing the snow into footprints. The air was crisp and smelt of…nothing really; it smelled like cold if that’s a smell. There were few in the park, mostly lovers and writers, and as he approach the area designated for those of the Iceglaze hold, the several people were joined by large icy sculptures.

Itchytell adjusted the large leather-bound book in his hand. He had found it in his father’s library and brought it out here to read. The book was a documentary on various Talderian beasts, real and mythical. The large beast absolutely fascinated him; they were so ferocious and powerful, taking at least 10 men to take down. Well, the REAL ones took ten men; the mythical and rare ones were always slain by some singular muscular heroine.
He arrived in the main area of the Iceglaze section of the park. He surveyed it and found an area around the border that was a little more secluded. He walked over to the area and found a large carving of a Waste Sabertooth. He eyed it and tugged at its teeth just out of curiosity. He sat down a little ways away in front of a tree and opened his book. “Chapter 1, the Mammoths of the Wastes.” He said audibly. He turned the old, brown, stained pages and began to read.

He then experienced a phenomenon most avid reader’s experience, which I call, the reader’s wall. It’s when you are so thoroughly enthralled in a book, you forget where you are, and all your senses are blocked out so your brain can fully immerse itself into a book. Itchytell was experiencing this phenomenon and didn’t hear the hard breathing, or the laughing, or the footsteps of the group of people approaching him.
He was smiling, giggling at a joke he read in the book, when it suddenly attacked him and jerked into the air. “What the-!” Itchytell exclaimed. With his reader’s wall rudely broken, he looked up and saw three boys in front of him sneering.
“Whatcha readin’?” a particularly skinny one said.
“I bet it’s a stupid book for shyke heads.” A particularly ugly one said.
“No.” Itchy replied. “It’s a very interesting book concerning the dire animals commonly found here in Taldera and in the Waste.” Itchytell sat up still with the book in his lap, using his arms to adjust himself.

To his surprise the one in the middle of the group, a fat boy, seemed to take interest in his book.
“That really sounds cool, I heard about the Waste Mammoth. They say it’s tall as a castle.”

[Itchytell]

“Yea I read about it here in this book, I don’t think ‘castle’ is completely accurate but-“

Itchytell got up and extended his hand towards the fat for him to shake, which the fat boy promptly ignored and said instead.
“Hey, uh, can I see the book?”
“Sure!” Itchytell said nicely.
He handed the book to the fat boy, who opened it and began scanning it. Boy, I’m happy I found someone who has the same interest as I.” The fat boy looked up from it promptly and licked his lips.
“So what are you trying to get out of this book?”
Itchy smiled. “I want to hunt some of these animals one day, not the ones in the Waste really, but the rare ones, the ones that only come out over many seasons, and I want to become powerful like the men who hunted them.”
It was silent for a while as the fat kid nodded his head in agreement, with a very stern look on his face. He then burst out in laughter, as well as his minions, and started hopping while tears began to form on his eyes. The fat boy sounded like a wheezing pig, spasmodically thrashing in a pit of mud, and his minions sounded like jackals drunk with some sort of highly fermented mead.
The laughing hadn’t subsided when the fat boy threw the book on the floor and stomped on it once.
Itchytell shouted “Hey! Don’t do that!”
The fat boy caught his breath and said “What… this?” He then hopped on the book and stomped on it five times in row, pushing it into the snow and into the dirt beneath. The blatant vandalization of his father’s property was enough to tip Itchytell over the edge. He had to hurt him, now. He felt his muscles tighten, and his skin became hot, as blood angrily boiled and rushed through his veins. His eyes gleamed ruby red. Adrenaline began to flood his body and his fist clenched.
Quickly he calculated his moves. Must get him down fast. Retrieve book. Punch to the face? No, too risky if no knockout. Punch to the stomach? No, too much fat. Kick to the balls? Yes, guaranteed fold. With this, he shot his booted foot straight in between the boy’s legs with red hot anger. The fat boy made no sound, but his body quickly bent over and his face stuck out in absolute agony, and he began to sweat, then he finally let out a squeak.
Seizing the opportunity in anger, Itchytell quickly grabbed the brown, short hair of the fat boy and kneed him three times violently in the face before the boys minions grabbed him and slammed him against the tree.

[Itchytell]

There was a moment afterwards where everything seemed suspended, as if anything could explode at any minute. Tension. Itchy could feel his heart beating. The fat boy was on all fours with one hand clutching his face. Itchytell could see that there was blood when the fat boy himself inspected his hand.
“You petching piece of shyke.” Spat the fat boy.
He slowly got up and lifted his head to look at Itchytell. Itchy tried to move at this point, but was restrained by the slightly taller and older boys. The fat kid’s hand went into a fist, and he began breathing hard. Itchytell could see that he had busted the boy’s fat lip, which was now gorging with blood; he had also bruised one of his eyes.
“I’ll make you pay for this.”
With that the boy walked a stepped closer and reeled his arm back. Itchytell knew exactly what he was going to do. His breath became cold and the left side of his face became hot. He braced himself.
Pow.
Itchytell would tell you that the punch didn’t hurt at all. That it was like snow falling on your cheek, and not even the blizzard kind of snow. But the punch was, in actuality, devastating, as the boy focused his entire body weight into it. His entire left cheek rang with pain and his head snapped right until it felt like it was about to snap off. The sound of skin on skin rang through the air, and the taste of his own coppery blood was on Itchytell’s tongue. He tried to look up, but it seemed that the momentum was still pushing his head right. The next thing he knew, his abdomen all of the sudden started to ache horribly, as the fat boy laid one on his stomach.
The minions allowed him to fall to his knees, where Itchytell gasped for the air that escaped his lungs. He couldn’t speak or move. The fat boy then delivered a kick to his stomach and Itchytell fell forward, supporting himself with knees and elbows instead of knees and hands. He wrapped his arm around his stomach and clenched his eyes to resist the pain. He tried desperately to breath, but the blows to the stomach rendered it impossible.
The fat boy then began to pace, staring down at poor Itchy, his feet crunching loudly in front if Itchy’s face. He grapped a handful of Itchy’s hair and raised his head up forcefully.
“You think you can mess with me? Huh monster boy!?”
Itchy remained silent and finally found he could breath.
“Answer me!”
The fat boy’s breathe was rank, acrid, and Itchytell’s ears began to ring. “Petch you.” Itchy said weakly.

[Itchytell]

A blow was delivered to Itchytell’s face by the fat boy’s foot. It didn’t hurt as bad, since the adrenaline had nulled the pain a bit, but it certainly was not pleasant. His lip busted and Itchytell tended to it with his tongue.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll petch your sister little boy.” the fat boy laughed in Itchytell’s face and high-fived his minions joyously. Itchytell didn’t have a sister, but the notion still angered him a bit. He looked up carefully while the boys laughed and gauged the approximate location of each one.

They were still in a semicircle in front of him, a little to the right, but the fat boy was right in front of him. Ok, one chance, all your strength. I hope this doesn’t end badly. Itchytell clenched the snow in his hands for reassurance and dashed towards the fat boy. It wasn’t truthfully a dash, more like a controlled fall; he utilized the falling momentum to turn it into horizontal momentum and ran for the boy’s knees. At the last chime, when his arms found the fat boys knees, he pulled up, literally lifting the fat boy clear off the ground, with little to no effort; they both fell to the ground. Itchytell quickly scrambled from his position between the boy’s legs and got on his stomach. He then straddled him and went to town on the boy’s fat face.

The sound of his punches resembled that of a butchers hammer on a wet steak. The fat boy’s face swiveled left to right with each consecutive blow, tenderizing his soft flesh. The feeling was actually pleasant to Itchytell, it felt like punching a cloud. Footsteps were then heard behind him and he quickly swiveled around the boy’s head in an oddly animal like manner. He saw the two other boys in front of him, and one of them had a gleaming object in his hand. A knife! Are you petching kidding me?” The boy had a knife gripped in his right hand and was looking straight at Itchytell. There was another tense moment, Itchytell could not bring himself to say anything, he just stared wide eyed at the boy.

The boy then made a slight jerky movement and Itchytell bolted to the left and circled, to where he was running towards the park exit. Itchytell wasn’t all that strong or fast, but he had a good amount of stamina. He heard the crunching of snow behind him, and his own feet churned and threw about snow. He didn’t dare look behind him, in fear of slowing, so he kept is eyes straight and focused all his strength towards running. The crunching started to subside, but he still heard voices yelling out to him saying “I’m gonna kill you!” and other nonsense.

Itchytell made it out of the park; nobody did so as to raise an eyebrow, since children as well as teenagers were known to run in parks. To ensure he was completely safe, he continued running. He spotted an alleyway and decided it would be a good place to hide. As he entered it, he saw a stone staircase leading up to a door and he ran too it. Disregarding the regular procedure for using a staircase, he jumped and grabbed the highest stair he could get and pulled himself up, promptly lying down flat. He peered from the edge of the staircase for a while.

As he anticipated, the boys had completely lost him, and ran straight past the alleyway. Itchytell sighed and rolled onto his back. Safe. Itchy stared tranquilly at the sky, and watched the clouds roll by gently. But felt emptiness to him. Did he need something? Or…did he FORGET something? As he realized he forgot his book in the park, he slapped his hand on his forehead and slid it down. Shyke…I’m gonna have to look for it another day, just in case the boys go back. Hope dad won’t notice. With that he hopped off the stairs and headed home, on a different route, of course.