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(Page 3 of 6) Saelieni Chapter 1 by Gregory Harvey His body laid awkwardly on the roof of the car. His head had hit something and was dribbling blood, although not badly. He saw that the gearshift (now above him) had a smear of red on it. How the hell had his head managed to hit that?
Before he thought anymore about it, Arthur dragged his body out through the front windscreen. As he did so his hands were cut by the glass that laid fragmented all over the road. They bled modestly.
What in Christ's name had he it?
Groggily raising himself to his feet, Arthur looked back and saw a small dog, a fox terrier perhaps, standing on the left side of the road. The entire time he looked at it the dog didn't move. His knee joint aching, Arthur stumbled forward. It was a piece of taxidermy. There was nothing else in the vicinity...
But it was undamaged...
The old Holden ute was mangled in the middle of the road... but the damn dog didn't even have a scratch. Couldn't have hit it... it was too small. It would have been crushed underneath his tires before the damn ute barrel-rolled.
The dust, like poison gas, was creeping in through his nostrils and into his lungs. As Arthur tried to recover his breath the dust began to layer the inside of his mouth with its sterile taste.
He needed to get to the hospital... but it was on the other side of town... and it was probably about another two or three hundred meters into the actual town proper. He'd have to wait until someone came along, he wouldn't risk walking with his head wound.
But it was Yulumson.
He might wait for six hours before a car came along.
He'd have to walk. Try and explain what happened to who ever lived on the outskirts of the town these days... and then get them to drive him to the hospital. He'd have to give the car yard in Roma a call as well... tell them he'd be a bit late... and what had happened to his ute.
Don't worry, be happy.
Arthur chuckled again, but not without a sense of irony.
***
"Are you alright mum?" Melanie tried for the hundredth time, "Please tell me you're alright..."
No response.
Melanie could have sworn the sword had dropped closer. She could almost feel it puncturing in. Carving through her eye socket and into her brain. The gruesome thoughts had made her break out in a cold sweat more than a few minutes ago. She wasn't normally so morbid... but she wasn't normally pinned in place by a medieval sword either. And where the hell had her mother gone?
"MUM?!?"
No response.
Melanie looked through her open bedroom door into the living room. Her vision was restricted to the few inches her bed frame would allow her to view. All she could see was the floor, the bottom half of a chair, and the bottom half of the TV, which was stuck on the blue, no-signal, screen. Everything was far too quite... except for the dull rumbling that had risen quickly after the helicopters had flown over. It was unlike any other noise she had heard, but at that moment, she was thinking of other things.
Such as the sword that was dangling ever closer...
***
It appeared to Arthur that his right knee joint was far more damaged than he had first thought, and the pain throbbing through his head was beginning to worry him, even with the incessant song bouncing through his mind like a kid who had eaten too much candy.
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