ALL 3 OF THEM - AMAZE - Tumblr Posts

This is a continuation of the poll story. All winning bits so far included below.

The sands devoured the landscape in every direction, a gaping yawn of yellows and reds. The protagonist's throat scorched dry. The last drops of their water bottle had been drained two hours ago.

They staggered another step forward on the dunes, squeezing their eyes shut against the breeze that somehow did nothing to alleviate the heat. They raised a hand to shield their face.

When they opened their eyes again, the antagonist stood in front of them. They looked as cool as ever, untouched by blistering day or the surprisingly freezing night.

"How is your great escape going?" the antagonist asked. They flicked their fingers, magic summoning a sweet pool of water into the inviting cup of their palm. "Are you ready to come home yet, darling?"

The protagonist's breath caught.

"Do you really think?" The antagonist stepped closer, holding their watery hand up to the protagonist's lips. "That distance alone will be enough to shatter the connection between us? This is silly. You know I don't like to see you suffer."

The protagonist let the antagonist feed them a drop of water. A moment of weakness, perhaps. Or maybe just the familiarity of them, of the bond rattling in their chest. The thirst and the hunger.

"Then close your eyes, love," they replied. "Look away and you won't have to."

The antagonist snorted. Their hand moved, swiftly, to cup the nape of the protagonist's neck.

"As if I've ever been able to keep my eyes off you from the moment we met."

It was idiotic, but the protagonist still smiled at that. Pained. Heart-punched.

Even with all the miles upon miles between them, the protagonist felt the touch like something real. Solid. Like the antagonist could always step through time and space and be there, so long as they were twined together.

The protagonist forced themselves to pull back.

If they let themselves linger too long, they really would go back.

Home.

It would be so much easier if it didn't still feel like that was what it was.

The antagonist's expression hardened, at the distance, the quiet refusal. At least, they tried. "I don't want you to suffer. I don't want to send legions after you. You deserve better than to be hunted like a common criminal."

"Like a prized stag."

The antagonist swallowed, but didn't protest.

The protagonist shrugged, as if it were really that easy. "Then don't hunt me. I've already escaped. Let me go."

"I don't want to," the antagonist said, with a dreadful tenderness. "But I will."

The protagonist sucked in a sharp breath, even if they had already suspected as much.

"You know I'll catch you," the antagonist pressed. "Do you think this desert and all the shifting sands of the world would be enough to hide you from me? Do you think there's anywhere you can run where I can't follow?"

"No," the protagonist said. "But I bet I can get to where I'm going first."

The antagonist's jaw clenched. "This is a courtesy," they said. "Run fast. Run hard. Because when I catch you, you will never run again."

And then they vanished, like they'd never been there at all.

There were very few ways to break a soulmate bond. Such things were designed to last forever after all. The protagonist staggered their way across the desert until they reached the oasis.

It sounded nice, a little like paradise. The oasis. But the waters of the forbidden oasis were a dangerous thing; they changed a person, lured them in, took them if they could.

The pool before them was perfectly clear, beautifully blue, and yet it was a chasm, falling deep down into the sand until the light could no longer illuminate the water. Sloping trees provided a whisper of shade against the scorching sun and biting winds. Soft mounds of impossible moss and wildflowers invited any weary traveler to be welcome, sit, rest and stay a while.

The protagonist fell to their knees by the edge of the water.

Option A

The antagonist appeared next to them. It wasn't a surprise, but the protagonist still felt their heart beat a little faster.

"Where are your legions now?" the protagonist asked. "Your hunters and your cages? You're too late. I said you would be."

"Is being mine so terrible that you would rather die?" The antagonist returned. "Don't do it."

"I might not die."

"Please."

That, somehow, was a surprise. That single soft broken word.

Option B:

The antagonist found them - the protagonist wasn't sure how long later. Everything in them hurt like someone had scooped their heart out of their chest, diced it, and shoved the ruined pieces back inside in all the wrong order.

They had a vague approximation of a heart. They had a wound.

So why could they still see the antagonist? The phantom should have been impossible. They had sacrificed so much to be free. Too much, maybe.

The antagonist crouched down with a pitying sigh, stroking their fingers through the protagonist's hair. A wretched sob caught in the protagonist's throat and they lilted in.

There was no soul-comfort. No completion. No fuzzing bond. No...

The antagonist was really there.

The protagonist gasped, eyes that had eased closed snapping open once more. They struggled to force their pained body upright.

The antagonist's fingers tightened on their throat in an instant, considering.

"You really did it," the antagonist murmured. "I didn't think you'd actually go through with it. Tell me." They pressed a hand, nails digging in, where the protagonist's heart technically still was. "What do you imagine I'm going to do with you now?"

Option C:

Figures danced, miraged, in the reflection of the water. Memories swam before the protagonist's eyes.

The first time they had met the antagonist, when everything had just felt so right. A hand reaching out for them, drawing them close across a dance hall, never quite letting go since.

The protagonist trailed their fingers across the surface, shattering the past in a thousand ripples. They leaned in, raw want and terror, as they cupped the water in their palms.

The next moment, figures dropped from the trees. They leapt upon the protagonist in an instant, hands rough and cruel as they dragged them away from the pool and all its complicated promises.

The antagonist appeared in front of them, no tenderness left. No thing just for the two of them.

"You're right, of course," the antagonist said. "I can't get to where you're going faster than you can. But did you really think I would not guard against this possibility? Do you think I would underestimate you so? Understand you so poorly?"

The protagonist gasped, choking out a breath as a boot slammed into their gut.

"This is a trap," they managed. "You -"

"You should have ran." The antagonist blurred in and out of their vision. "You should have kept running, and running, never stopping, instead of trying to do this. Then maybe, just maybe, you could have won."