AnotherArchetype
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134. Prickles
🕑 Added 2025-04-05 17:34:42 +0000 UTCStepping out the back of the kitchen to the start of the sprawling mansion garden beyond, I found myself thinking of home.
Not the London flat. But my true home, my childhood home on the far side of Stowchester.
The home I had known for fourteen years before having to move out.
It had belonged to my grandparents, who paid a mere six-thousand-pounds for the home which would later sell for around three-hundred-thousand.
Having had a lonely childhood, what I remembered most about my home was the endless hours I spent alone playing in my own fantasy world.
Whether that was jumping on my parent’s bed and poking holes with a stick into the polystyrene-panelled ceiling, imagining I was fighting a horde of orcs or evil space wizards, or an enemy straight out of my favourite cartoons.
When I wasn’t racing around the house fighting invisible enemies, I was out in the back garden doing the same thing.
There had been a particular bush I liked to thwack with one of the many sticks I took from the old shed; the bush was called ‘the prickly bush’ and it withstood the many stick-thwacks rather well.
Over the years from as young as I could remember to an age where I perhaps should have known better than to play pretend in the garden in my early teens; even back then, I had a sense of guilt about the fun I had imagining the exciting things which weren’t really happening to me.
Maybe it was easier to pretend I was a hero fighting monsters and madmen, than to accept the reality that I was just a little friendless boy playing pretend on his own.
Standing at the threshold of the mansion’s huge back-garden, which was on a slight decline and stretched on for about half a football pitch length, I found myself staring at a familiar looking ‘prickly bush’.
Of course it wasn’t the exact same bush, but it surely was a close enough breed of ‘prickles’ to remind me of those deep childhood memories.
Again, maybe as a sign that people and the things they do never really change in the fundamentals of who they are, I found myself feeling guilty and embarrassed.
Because there I was, standing in a rather menacing and ridiculous-looking costume. In my childhood my costumes had been a space-faring ranger, or cow-hide wearing cowboy, or soft-and-shiny-dinosaur of the herbivore variety; I always played the hero and never liked to be the bad guy.
But the ‘costume’ I was wearing was the real deal.
I was excited to test out the sinew-suit’s limits. And I was on patrol. Heroes went on patrol too, didn’t they?
Although I didn’t consider myself a hero, there was no harm in pretending for a little while.
I broke right into a sprint, pushing my arms and legs and the sinew-suit as hard as I could.
The speed with which I ran picked up rapidly until I was racing around the edge of the mansion to the point where everything around me became a blur.
In response to the blur everything had become, the power enhanced all of my senses, particularly the speed with which my eyes could register obstacles in my path, so that I matched what the beast had been capable of when it took over my body the second time.
Every blade of grass, every insect whizzing through the air, every rattling tree-leaf I chose to let my gaze linger on became so slow it was as if I were taking my time staring at them.
I quickly reached a point where the speed with which I ran, I was sure, would have made me look like a fast moving pink-and-white blur to whoever might be near. I knew however, thanks to my senses reaching out and searching the area, that there wasn’t anyone nearby to see me.
The stone wall which bordered the mansion rapidly grew in size as I neared it. For a moment I was afraid that I was moving too fast, with no chance of stopping my barrelling speed.
If I hit the wall at this speed it’ll turn me to mush, I thought.
At what seemed like the last possible moment, though I felt completely in control, I hard-right-turned and with incredible deftness, hardly loss any momentum.
More! I thought, excitedly, More!
I continued to run laps around the mansion, finding it more efficient to run and lean my head forwards to better handle the opposing air trying to slow me down. Attempts at jumping ahead, though I was able to manage an incredible distance further than I had ever jumped before; was slower overall than maintaining the sprint.
With each lap of the mansion I made sure to look around, turning my head to better listen out for trouble. Not so much as a mouse – which there were a surprising amount of skittering around inside and out the manor – could have evaded my senses.
The sheer intoxicating speed with which I found myself running wasn’t the most exciting part. Nor was it that I still hadn’t felt like I had reached my limit for how fast I could run. It was the ease with which I did it overall; the preservation of stamina; the sinew-suit soaking up all the effort I would have had to muster both physically and mentally, eating away at my willpower before. I knew all too well the cost of moving so fast, so powerfully, yet the sinew-suit somehow bypassed this effort like some kind of cheat code.
When I had finished with my fun on the ground I decided to kick things up a notch. I leapt onto the boundary wall, kicked off in a fluid motion; did a backflip and a quick spin, then landed facing the mansion wall which I ran upwards. The momentum and power of my legs may have been able to run up the wall without the use of the adhesion the sinew-suit was capable of; but in combination, I was able to run up the mansion wall with such ease it was just a fraction less as easy as running along flat ground.
I kicked off just as I neared the top of the mansion, soaring up into the sky. Flying. Free.
“Woohoo!” I shouted, spreading my arms and legs open wide; a big, dumb, happy smile having spread across my sinew-masked face.
I let myself spin round in the air, looking all around the mansion grounds and beyond. My eyes magnified on all of the details, and the power increased the speed with which my brain could receive all of the information. It was like taking ultra-high-definition snapshots of the whole surrounding view of the manor.
Commit it all to memory, I thought, willing the power to do so. And it did. And just like that I knew, should I choose to, that I could remember in extremely fine detail what was where over every inch of the surrounding manor, and more of the environment beyond – the things which were out in the open at least.
I landed on my hands at the highest point of the manor, which was a metal rooster-compass. It twirled around thanks to a combination of my weight and the slight breeze, the metal letting out a series of loud squeaks and creaks.
I pushed off, the strength of the sinew-suit in combination with my arms shooting me upwards. I somersaulted forwards, landed on the sloping shingles of the manor roof, and slid my way down until I reached the edge.
I came to a hard stop, my feet breaking the gutter at the edge to break some of the momentum.
“Ah,” I sighed, satisfied with the effort I had just made.
I wasn’t out of breath, wasn’t tired either. The sinew-suit rippled and shifted over my body a little bit, which I realised was the suit’s way of relieving a lot of the tension it had built up. In a way, the suit was sighing too.
My legs dangled over the edge of the mansion roof, and I had no fear whatsoever of falling. So much of my usual apprehension was gone. I just felt good and relaxed for a change.
Now to test my strength, I thought, and I had already decided on just how I would.
I let myself fall off the mansion roof’s edge, entered free-fall for a few moments, then decided rather than try to break the fall, to see how well I could take the landing.
Falling fast. Bracing for impact. The ground grew in size, about to hit with the force of a freight train.
Pad-pad.
The softness of the landing was a bit underwhelming, but not at all unwelcome. I didn’t know how to whistle, so I broke into a cartoonish stroll and let out a nothing-hum to myself.
I entered the mansion through the same back door I had exited from. After passing beyond the kitchen I made a beeline through the mansion to the swimming pool area. On my way I listened out for any sign of what Azad might be up to, and it was the same as before; lots of gas-like hissing, which I could only guess was more steam, as well as squishy sounds and hard clicking noises. I intended to go up and check on Azad soon, but I had assigned myself another job to do first.
The swimming pool hadn’t changed since the previous day; a big ugly heap of trash was piled high throughout the pool, with more spilling over the edges.
I cracked my knuckles and said, “Time to get to work.”
I jumped onto the heap of trash, finding out that even some of the sharper objects amid the trash weren’t sharp enough to tear threw the soles of the sinew-suit.
My focus remained on the washing machine.
“Here we go,” I muttered.
I crouched and took hold of the washing machine. The sinew-suit’s ‘musculature’ all over responded to the challenge. The washing machine, though heavy, proved easy enough for me to lift away from the other debris.
Before I could second-guess myself, I acted on a dumb idea. Still holding the washing machine, I jumped off the heap back out of the pool.
Landing proved easy enough; the washing machine threatened to throw me off balance. Amazingly, the sinew-suit seemed to grow, and toughen up, whilst still retaining a good deal of its elasticity, in response to the challenge of keeping me upright whilst holding firmly onto the washing machine. I could feel the sinew-suit’s effort to meet the challenge climbing, on its way to an upper limit of some kind; but that limit wasn’t reached.
“I can still do more?” I said to myself, somewhat in disbelief.
My goal was to clear the swimming pool out to create the space Azad and I wanted for our training sessions to come. After jumping out of the pool with the washing machine in hand, I got a little sidetracked.
I took more junk from the swimming pool that could fit into the washing machine to add to the weight, and found I was capable of lifting the filled-up washing machine easy enough.
There was a broken fifty-inch flat screen TV in the pool. I jumped back in, and jumped back out with the TV, and added that on top of the washing machine.
Was that going to be the maximum weight?
I had set the washing machine down, with the TV rested flat on top. So I squatted in front of the washing machine, gripped it like I had done before, and lifted.
Tension, a familiar sensation to coiling, built across the sinew-suit. But still no limit reached. I set the objects down again with gentle precision.
“I can still do more,” I said to myself again.
I searched the heap for more objects to add to the weight. Thankfully, the flat-screen TV proved to be a good surface to spread even more objects atop.
I added a microwave (filled with more junk), a golf bag with a half dozen golf clubs in them, an entire single-bed-sized mattress; and, ooo-la-la, a duffle-bag with three bowling balls inside.
With all these items set up I was a little apprehensive.
Maybe it would be safer for me to coil up beneath the sinew-suit to make sure I don’t break my spine? I thought.
But then I figured coiling up would defeat the whole point of finding out how much the suit could do on its own merit.
I approached the new mass of objects set atop the washing machine, and decided to just go for it. I gripped the washing machine, sinking my sinew-gloved fingers into the metal to get the best grip possible.
Now!
The mass of objects clicked, clacked, snapped, and groaned under the competing weights struggling to support each other.
What I first discovered with all the weights added as they were, was that the sinew-suit was slower to lift them all. This, at least, was the first sign the sinew-suit did in fact have a limit which could be reached. I didn’t feel the tension much in my body however beyond a dull pressure; in that sense it was the first time I felt as if I truly had super-strength.
Bit by bit all the objects were lifted as high as I could extend my arms so that they were stretched out in front of me. The sinew-suit piled on more strands along the spine of the suit, as well as the arms and backs of the legs; and the more it did the easier it seemed for me to maintain my posture and hold the weight.
“I can still do more,” I said, in awe.
I still hadn’t reached my limit.
A sudden metallic groaning, snapping, and shrieking noise filled the air. The washing machine fell apart at the sections where my hands were sunk into it, and with it all the stuff on top fell off – and right on top of me.
It didn’t hurt, though for a moment I felt like I couldn’t move. I climbed out of the mess of stinking objects on top of me, stood up, and patted the worst of the grime off the sinew-suit.
I noticed around my torso, where my rib-cage was, an outer-ribcage of bone was there where it wasn’t before.
Ah, I thought, the suit generated it to protect me.
This time I felt just the slightest mental tug from the effort the sinew-suit pulled from me to bring the bone of the new rig-cage into being on my behalf. Compared to all I had been able to do with seemingly very little expended use of my willpower, this seemed a fair trade-off.
I decided then that I didn’t have enough weights to properly find out the sinew-suit’s strength limit.
Having had my fun, and having tried out the suit’s potential, I made myself get to work properly gutting the swimming pool of all the trash.
This involved lots of trips in and out of the swimming pool area, taking all the objects out to the boundary between the mansion, and the gray stone wall which bordered the mansion.
I went about the task as quickly as I could manage; running back and forth with whatever I could grab and chuck. In just under thirty minutes I had the swimming pool completely emptied out, and I didn’t feel even a lick of tiredness from the effort.
The emptied pool was still covered in gross grime and other foul-smelling substances I didn’t want to guess at.
I’ll let Azad help me with the clean up, I thought, figuring I’d done plenty already.
I’d resisted the urge to check on Azad for long enough that I noticed I was afraid of what I might find when I did.
Just do it, I told myself.
I took off the mask and bone sections of the sinew-suit, and let myself ease back to my normal height. It felt good to be back to my regular height again.
My trudging pace through the mansion and up to the first floor was a testament to how little I wanted to find out what had become of Azad.
Upon entering the hallway I spotted something different.
Where before steam had wafted out from beneath Azad’s bedroom door, the steam had stopped. In fact, besides the sound of Azad moving around a little as well as the sound of his breathing, all of the clicks, pops, and squishing noises had stopped too.
And there, like a layer of frost beneath the door, there looked to be a layer of glitter-dust coating the hallway floorboards.
Dust, which was silver, and gold.
There came a sudden clack, and the door swung open.
Comments
Mrs Cotton
I like these long chapters btw!
Mrs Cotton
Ooo I wonder what Azad has become…
