The Story of Douglas Taylor
Blaze felt every ounce of his strength being drained from his body, as the sword tore through his back. Blaze let out a cry of pain, as Demon Hunter continued to thrust the sword further in until the decorative joint rammed up against Blaze’s bloody chest. The blood began poured down from Blaze’s chest covering the decoration of two dragons linked together in dark red blood. Blaze looked up at Demon Hunter, who was now leaning over him to thrust his sword as far as it would go. He could see his eyes fill with rage and hatred. Blaze tried to speak as he opened his quivering mouth, trying his best to say something but he couldn’t gather the energy to say the words. Tears started to run down Blaze’s cheek creating a steady stream of water that congregated at the bottom of Blaze’s chin, forming a large drop of water that splashed on Demon Hunter’s hand. Demon Hunter could feel the tears hit his hand, and he looked down at Blaze confused. Blaze’s eyes began to feel very heavy, and they dropped down, as his vision began to blur. Then in the distance Blaze could see something, it was a little boy.
The boy was standing there pointing at him, suddenly several boys appeared out of no where and all pointed at Blaze laughing. Several of them were taunting him shouting names. Just then the surrounding started to dissolve around Blaze, the sky scrapers crumbled away in to blue sky’s and trees. The road disappeared in to the blackness and after a few seconds grass started to sprout all around him and within seconds grew in to an entire field that spread as far as Blaze could see. Demon Hunter and his sword faded in to nothingness in front of Blaze’s eyes. As Blaze looked down at where the sword had been, he saw that all of the blood was gone but what was more surprising was the fact that his body had changed. His hair was shorter and cut in to a bowl shape, his body had changed in to that of a 10 year child and his was very overweight.
The children were still pointing and laughing at him calling him names about his weight. For some reason Blaze felt a tear run down his cheek as he started to cry at the abuse he was receiving from the children. Then Blaze felt a thump on the back of his head as he yelled out in pain as the blow knocked him forwards as he thrust his hands to the ground to stop himself from forwards. Then another blow struck his side, Blaze grabbed his side with one of his hand keeping himself upright with the other. Then another blow struck Blaze on the hand making him fall face first in to the dirt below. Blaze was now starting to cry with more intensity as several tears began to run down his cheeks. Blaze raised his head to see the child in front of him pick up a stone and throw it straight at Blaze’s face. The pain was overwhelming and Blaze buried his face in to his hands. The children kept throwing stones as Blaze curled up in to a ball as the stones bruised his frail body. After a while the sky started to cloud over, rain started to pour down on to the field. The children soon started to run in different direction for shelter, Blaze just lay there curled up in to a ball crying. After a while Blaze stopped crying and rose to his feet. His whole body ached in pain and small bits of blood poured from his grazes and wounds caused by the stones. He started to walked through the muddy field in his wet clothes, after a while he came to the exit. It all look very familiar.
In front of him was a gate; on the other side was a street with houses on it. Blaze opened the gate and walked through, after looking up and down the street Blaze felt drawn to the house in front of him. It was a two story house, semi-detached there was a large driveway and garage at the front of the house, with a wall around the front. Blaze walked across towards the house crossing the street as he went. Blaze walked along the drive way past the car and stood in front of the door staring at it. There was a knocker on the door and Blaze slowly raised his arm and grabbed a hold of it. Not sure of what to expect, Blaze hesitantly raised slammed the down the knocker creating a large bang on the door. Almost instantly the door flew open, standing in front of him was a middle age woman with black hair and deep blue eyes. She let out a gasp upon seeing Blaze and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him inside of the house. “Dougy what happened to you? Did those mean kids pick on you again? Look at you you’re soaked, how did you get this wet? Your going to have to get out of those clothes straight away otherwise you will get a cold” The woman spoke with such speed that she left no time for Blaze to respond to any of her questions.
Blaze began to wonder who this woman was, and what on earth was going on. The woman grabbed the bottom of Blaze’s shirt and pulled it over his head. She then removed the rest of Blaze’s clothes and wrapped a warm fluffy towel around him. She then led Blaze in to the living room where she sat him down in front of the TV. The TV screen was blurred; as Blaze looked around the room he could tell that something wasn’t right. All of the pictures and paintings where blurred, the specific designs on the wallpaper were also blurred. Just then the woman walked in to the room with a big piece of chocolate cake for Blaze. Blaze took the cake and the fork and stared blankly at it, until he felt sadness swell up inside of him. As he stared in to the cake he started to hate himself, for the way he looked Blaze couldn’t control it and before long he was crying again. Then it clicked, Blaze realised where he was. Suddenly the walls and floor melted away leaving nothing but Blaze sitting there in a black void of nothing. The cake disappeared from his hands as well as the fork. Blaze cried a little after realising who that woman was. “Mother, I’m sorry.”
As the tears ran down his cheeks, they began to sparkle and glitter lighting the empty void that surrounded Blaze. As Blaze looked around the void started to take shape, walls appeared as if being built in front of Blaze’s eyes at tremendous speeds. The room was quite large, and the walls were being painted white. Several glass doors appeared to the right and left of Blaze. Mirrors appeared on the walls, and several pieces of exercise equipment dropped in from the void that was still above. After everything settled the floor and roof came crashing down on to the room making it complete.
Blaze closed his eyes to wipe the tears from his face to get a clear view of the room that now surrounded him. As he opened his eyes the room was filled with people exercises on the equipment that filled the room. As he looked around he saw various types of people, male and female, athletic types, muscular types, overweight people. There were all going about the business as usual like nothing had happened. As Blaze looked around, he saw his reflection in the mirror, he had changed again. He was almost back to his original self expect he was much younger by around five years or so. He was a lot muscular then his childhood state. Just then the door opened behind them was a black void but out of the void stepped a young man. He was around six foot three inches tall, he had short brown hair. He was wearing an ice blue t-shirt and black jogging bottoms with white trainers.
The young man walked across the gym heading straight for Blaze, Blaze stood him self up and tried to prepare himself but he had no idea what he was trying to prepare him self for. As the man neared, Blaze’s heart started to race he knew this man some how. Blaze started to relax; he somehow knew that this man wasn’t going to harm him in anyway. Finally the man arrived in front of Blaze, he man offered his hand to shake and Blaze grabbed hold as they shook hands. “Hey Doug good luck on Saturday, hopefully we will both make it through. But you know there’s no way your going to beat me you know, no matter how hard you train.” The man said in a happy tone smiling at Blaze. “Yeah… sure” Blaze hesitantly replied unsure of what was happening. “Hey Doug you ok, you don’t seem yourself” The man asked concerned. “Yeah I’m fine” Blaze quickly asked so not to arouse suspicion. “Well then, I will see you Saturday at the military enrolment”
Blaze knew what week this was in his life; he had been training for several years now to get in to the army. He had wanted to prove to himself that is his better then the rest and would be able to pass the trials where other people had failed. He remembered that he had originally wanted to pass the army to show the people that had abused him that he was better then them and that he could make something of him self. The building suddenly shattered around the young man and Blaze. As Blaze looked around the black void once again his eyes became fixated on the young man, whose clothes were dissolving and being replace by new ones. Blaze looked down and the same was happening to him he was suddenly wearing army combat uniform. The young man in front of Blaze started to run on the spot in the black void that surrounded them. Blaze just stared straight at him puzzled at what he was doing. Then Blaze felt something cold land on him, as he looked up hundred of tiny water droplets hit him in the face. “Rain??” Blaze said baffled at what was happening. Rain was falling from above them but there were no clouds in the sky.
Then as he looked up again, dark blue started to spread above them consuming the black nothingness. Soon above them was completely blue, then as like it was being drawn in front of Blaze clouds and birds started to appear. A strong wind came from the east, the same direction that the young man was running in. Blazes clothes waved in the wind as it fiercely pushed past him. More and more things started to appear around him several trees appeared in the distance, the ground formed beneath his feet. The ground was soft and muddy were the rain had drenched the soil. In the direction that the young man was running in seemed to be an obstacle course, it was comprised over several walls, some with windows, tyres on the floor and rope swings. Finally several other people appeared in front of and behind Blaze. They were all running in the same direction as the young man. On the outside of the obstacle course were several older looking men, holding stopwatches and whistles.
Then with a flash of light, everyone started to move at some speed towards the obstacle course. Blaze decided to follow the young man as he just had to find out who he was and if he was someone important from his past. The young man was sprinting ahead, but Blaze was starting to catch up with him. The young man dived through the window of the first wall and rolled when he hit the ground and bounced back on to his feet. Blaze did the same and was now only a few metres behind the young man now. The next obstacle was the rope swing the young man grabbed hold of the rope at the same time that Blaze grabbed hold of his rope. The young man turned his head to Blaze and smiled as he swung across the water, Blaze quickly followed suit but towards the end Blaze jumped off and landed on the edge of the water pond and sprinted forward. Blaze and the young man were now neck and neck. Blaze could feel his heart beating violently but he hard to give it his all. As Blaze looked at the young man he could see that he still had the smile on his face. The wall was bearing down on Blaze, this time he had to climb up it. The young man reached the wall a split second before Blaze managed too. He placed his right foot on the wall and began to quickly run up the wall, as he neared the top he grabbed a hold off the top of the wall and pulled himself up the rest of the way.
Blaze decided to do the same, he quickly ran up the wall but near the top, his foot made a part of the wall crumble away. Blaze reached out for the top of the wall with his out stretched hand but he missed. He started to fall back down when a hand reached out and grabbed a hold of his wrist. It was the young man; he raised him up and threw him over the wall. Blaze fell back down the other side and landed on his feet. The young man dropped down besides him, “can’t give up now, can we?” the young man said with a smile on his face. He started to run off towards the next obstacle Blaze smiled at this and gave pursuit. “I will beat you” he muttered to himself with a small smile on his face. Tyres where the next obstacle as the young man was half way across it Blaze pushed himself with his might to try and catch up. As he stepped in and out of the tyres he could see ahead that he was beginning to gain on him. This seemed to motivate him even more as he got faster and faster. Both of them left the tyres at the same time, they could both see in the distance was the finish line. The wind was blowing against them, Blaze could feel his muscles start to ache all over as the cold rain hit his body. He was giving it everything he had as he sprinted towards the finish line, but the young man was starting to gain the lead as Blaze’s aching muscles were starting to slow him down again.
Blaze was now only around 50 metres away from the finish line. He started to push his body harder as Blaze and the young man became neck and neck again. Seeing this, the young man shouted out to Blaze “Give it your all!” Blaze started to push ahead. Then before he realised it Blaze had passed the finish line and could hear a voice calling out to him “Hey, you can stop running now. You won!” Blaze stopped in his tracks and looked behind him. To see the young man jogging towards him, “hey you did great. You’ve improved a lot. Well done you deserved to win it” the young said as he slowly panted from exhaustion. “Riser, Derrick” a man shouted holding a clipboard near the finish line. The young man turned his head around “here!” he shouted back. Everything then froze and cracks appeared all around. It was all coming back to Blaze now. “Derrick Riser, how could I of forgotten you”
Pieces of the surroundings started to fall away as the cracks spread throughout the sky and the ground. As the pieces disappeared in their place Blaze could make out derelict buildings and a sunny sky. The ground beneath Blaze was comprised of concrete and rubble. The people around Blaze disappeared apart from Derrick, his clothes stayed the same but a helmet was appearing on him. He was now carrying a semi-automatic rifle. He was slowly changing his position, he turned to face Blaze and lowered him self slightly by bending his knees. He carried his gun pointing it slightly towards the ground. Blaze unconsciously held out his hands and a semi-automatic rifle appeared in them. He knew how to use it, he turned and faced the building that was appearing in front of him as the surroundings changed around him. Everything changed in to the city, he heard a click around ten people around him appeared. “Take that building!” was the order that came from behind Blaze. The people started moving quickly towards the wall of the building.
Suddenly bullets ran through the door of the building, one of the soldiers was sent straight to the floor as the bullets ran through his body. Blaze, Riser and the other soldiers leaned against the wall. Riser was next to the door as bullets continued to fire through the door. He slide along the wall to get slightly closer, as he did he pulled a grenade from his belt. He closed his eyes and muttered something to himself and placed his hand on his head and lowered it too his chest and then went from shoulder to shoulder forming a cross. He then pulled the pin out of the grenade and threw the grenade through the door. “Get down!” Derrick yelled to his comrades as he knelt to the floor covering his ears. An explosion shook the building and dust shot out of the doorway and in to the street. Blaze grabbed a hold of his gun and swung around Derrick and began to storm the building. The other soldiers followed him as did Derrick. Blaze ran through the corridor past the first two doors. At the end of the corridor were several bodies by a self mounted machine gun. There were stairs leading up to the next level. Blaze thought to himself there must be around at least four floors due to size of the building. He peered around the corner to see up the stairs, he could hear voices coming from up the stairs. The other soldiers were securing the floors on the bottom floor. Derrick was behind Blaze now, Blaze pointed up the stairs if to signal that they were going to go to the higher levels. Derrick nodded and started to ascend the stairs.
Derrick turned around to walk up the stairs backwards as Blaze walk forwards so he could see if there were any enemy soldiers behind the stairs. As they reached the top of the stairs it was all clear. There were two doors and another stair case leading up; Derrick signalled that he was going to check the door on the left. Blaze nodded and headed to the one on the right. With a swift kick the door swung open, Derrick rushed in to room and headed for a small gap in the room. He quickly ran across and leaned against the wall on the other side several bullets hit the wall and became embedded in it. Derrick took a deep breath and performed the cross on himself again. He quickly turned around the corner and knelt down. There were two enemy soldiers in front of him, Derrick quickly opened the fire the bullets ran through the soldier chest knocking him over a couch, the other one was hit in the leg several time. Derrick dashed forward as the soldier tried to raise his weapon to open fire. Derrick swung his rifle around hitting him with the end of it in the head. The soldier collapsed to the floor unconscious.
Blaze kicked down the door, he instantly came face to with an enemy; he quickly opened fire as the bullets hit the enemy soldier knocking him against the wall. He slid down leaving a trail of blood on the wall behind him. As Blaze turned towards the rest of the room, a man with two curved jagged swords came dashing towards him at great speeds, Blaze managed to fire a round of which hit the man in the leg. The man stumbled and swung the sword towards Blaze, Blaze held out his sword. The two collided; Blaze pushed back the sword and smacked the man to the floor with his rifle. The man started to get back up as Blaze opened fire once again riddling his body with bullets. At a closer inspection Blaze recognised the swords, they were his he knelt down the floor and touched them. “So this is how I managed to get them” he muttered to himself.
Once again the floor fell in to the black void, and the wall dissolved around him. The sky appeared above them, it was covered in a black smoke that appeared brown as the sun shone on it in places. The ground was covered in mud, Blaze looked around and he was in a trench. Explosions could be heard, they were closer then Blaze liked. As he looked he could see missiles flying overhead as he turned his attention back to the trench, people started to appear around them some of them were running up and down the trench while others were leant up against the side of the trench. Besides him Derrick Riser appeared he appeared to be older then before, and attached to his helmet was a green visor. Then suddenly a similar green visor appeared on Blaze.
As Blaze looked through the green visor pieces of information started to appear when he turned to Derrick it showed various pieces of information “Name: Derrick Riser, Rank: Corporal, Age: 21, Blood type: A.” Then a man started to walk down the trench shouting various things “You are here because you are the best of the best. When I give the order you will rise over the trench and storm the enemy bunker, you must take it at all costs!” Blaze raised his head slightly over the trench. He could see another trench around thirty metres ahead and an enemy bunker behind it. All of a sudden the order was given “Charge!” Derrick rose to his feet and jumped over the trench as did Blaze. Loads of other soldiers also did the same, bullets rained down on to battle field from the enemy bunker. Soldiers were falling down left and right, Blaze and Derrick ran across the battlefield as quick as possible. They were around half way across when explosion came from all around them. They kept running as the screams of the battlefield felt like they were coming from all around them. They soon reached the trench, they aimed down and fired upon the enemy soldiers, the soldiers fired back but missed them as the bullets hit their bodies. Blaze and Derrick dropped down in the enemy trench.
Enemy soldiers came running towards them, Blaze and Derrick crouched down and opened fire until the bullets emptied in the clips. To the side of them was a passageway, on the visor it displayed information showing a map of the bunker. They had landed in front of the entrance to the bunker the visor started to highlight the directions to the command room on the bunker. Blaze and Derrick dropped their rifles and ran towards the passageway as bullets hit the ground behind them. As Blaze and Derrick ran along the passageway Blaze pulled out one of his swords and a pistol, Derrick pulled out two pistols. When they finally reached the door the enemy soldiers were starting to fire down the passageway in an attempt to get Blaze and Derrick before they managed to enter the bunker. But Blaze and Derrick quickly opened the door and closed it behind them. They pushed some boxes behind the door to make sure that the enemy soldiers wouldn’t be able to follow them for a while. As the looked around the visor showed them the heat signatures of the enemy soldiers in the bunker, there were around twenty soldiers in the bunker they were all on the top floor. Blaze and Derrick looked at each other and nodded as they ran towards the stairs
As they reached the higher level, the visor zoomed in to their location showing them a more accurate location of the enemy soldier’s. Most of the men were in front of them; at the front of the bunker were the gun emplacements. There were around seven in each room of the two gun emplacement rooms at the front of the bunker. Behind them were six soldiers in the command room. Blaze and Derrick looked at each other again, Blaze pointed to the gun emplacement room on the right and started to head towards it. Derrick nodded and quietly ran to the one on the left.
Blaze quietly opened the door, he could see in front of him the gun emplacements there were three with two men operating each and an officer at the end commanding the troops. Blaze could see the explosions from the battlefield from where he was standing. Blaze quietly walked around the side of the room and headed towards the officer. He grasped tightly on to the handle of his sword. As he drew closer he brought it down to his side with it the blade pointed towards the officer. He then in an instance quickly lunged forward shoving his sword through the officer’s body. Blaze let go of his sword and swung his arm around the officer neck and grabbed hold of him. He swung his other arm around and rested it on the dieing officer’s shoulder. Blaze quickly squeezed the trigger several times firing upon the soldiers. Before they realised what was happening they hit the floor grasping the bodies because of the pain.
After all the soldiers were down, Blaze quickly removed his sword from the officer and headed towards the command room. He took several strides towards the door and rushed through the door. Gun fire could be heard through the door to the other gun emplacement room. Blaze continued towards the command room, the soldier barged through the door and dived across the room. Using the visor to pinpoint his targets he quickly opened fire while in mid air. The enemies didn’t know what hit them several of were dead before they even hit the floor. As Blaze hit the floor he slid across it and slid in to a computer terminal. On the visor Blaze could see that there was one soldier left. Blaze removed the clip from the pistol and replaced it. There was table in the middle of the room; Blaze could see the soldier legs moving towards him. Blaze quickly fired at his leg, the bullets tore through his calf muscle and quickly fell to the floor in pain. As he fell Blaze opened fire as the bullets hit the soldier’s body. As Blaze took a deep breath, everything in the room turned to dust, and the walls began to crumble away in to the black void again. Blaze managed to regain his breath quickly. A voice echoed through the black void “I recommended you for a promotion, as well as Derrick Riser. You’re going to join a special squad. A squad of super soldiers you will be the one’s who will win this way for us. All you have to do is sign here”
The black void quickly turned in to a type of lab. There were various types of equipment around the room. Against one the walls were several large tubes of liquid, Blaze could just make out that there were people in them. They were attached to wires and tubes, “What on earth is going on here” Blaze wondered to him self. All of a sudden one of the tubes opened, smoke filled the area. Several scientists came running to the area. Blaze stepped back in to the shadows to avoid being seen, as the smoke cleared. Blaze could see a man; he appeared to be on fire. The fire soon died down and the man staggered to his feet. Several scientists ran to him to put towels around him. Blaze remembered this all now “that… that’s me!” the other Blaze started to say something “who… who am… I?” from the other corner of the room in the shadows came the answer “your name, is Blaze!” Blaze then felt a great pain run through out his entire body and all his energy leave him, as Blaze looked down he saw he standing in a pool of blood. His hand was clutching his stomach; he fell to his knees in agony. The lab started to disappear around him in to the black void again. A city started to appear around him, the pool of blood spread further and Blaze was back to normal. In front of him Demon Hunter was standing putting his sword back in to his sheath.
“Hell awaits you Demon!” Demon Hunter said as he could see Blaze was facing his final moments. “I remember” Blaze said with a smile on his face. Demon Hunter took a step back and his facial expression changed to one of confusion. “I remember it all now!” Blaze shouted as he collapsed to floor dead.
END OF CHAPTER 4
| Previous | Next |
