"Nope, they're not our friends," Winston grunted.
As the two men slowly approached, he whispered, "Do we make a run for it?"
Winston was expecting an answer, but he was stunned to discover that Lydia was already beating him to it. She had been crouched, hiding in the shadows, and she was so well hidden that she even slipped past her only friend here!
Lydia rolled her way back into the ditch, and he knew this only when he heard her roll around in the mud.
If he didn't know her any better, he would assume that she was ditching him, and leaving him for dead, but that was not the case. She had some sort of plan in mind, and paired with the fact that she didn't ask him to follow her, he got a general assumption of what her plan was.
"So, I should keep them busy…" He spoke to himself.
Afterwards, he looked at the two men, and said, "Come on, guys, we can figure something out. We can make a deal."
"A deal, huh?" One of the men said, "Which demon did you beg back there, kid? You popped out of a casket, and now you want to put us in one of them. Is that it?"
"I didn't beg any demon," He followed along. "Perhaps the Gods gave me another chance? Do you really want to challenge the decree of the Gods?"
Winston was not a religious man, not in any account, but these men, these guards had swords on their hands, so he'd say anything to stop them from striking him dead. He was hoping to buy Lydia enough time for her to stitch her plan together.
At the same time, he was so nervous that these guards would spot her, that he did not dare to turn back and check on her progress. He couldn't risk it, because even if he got cut down right here, he'd die peacefully knowing that he gave her a chance to get out of here, to survive.
"We're not so keen on the Gods," One of the guards said, and tightened his grip on his sword, "Why can't you just stay dead?"
The guard then swung his Longsword at Winston, horizontally, aiming to cut his head clean off!
Winston ducked, and rolled backwards, slamming his body across the thick mud. He sank, and disappeared in the mud as if he was a shadow himself, a figment of the guard's imagination!
"Come back here!" The guard demanded, "Dead people are supposed to stay dead, God damn it."
"Calm down, man," The other guard spoke to his comrade, "You're gonna get us in trouble with all that God talk. You know what the Master thinks about them."
"Fuck you, and fuck them!" He answered, and then jumped in the ditch, following the man who was supposed to stay dead. "Oh, you done pissed me off now, kid! I will kill you slowly, tear you limb by limb…"
Winston was a foot below the mud, struggling to breathe, but he had used the short moment when the two guards were bickering to find himself a little hole in the mud to breathe through. It wasn't great, but it was enough for now. He was well-camouflaged, like a very muddy chameleon.
A moment later, one of the caskets that had been set up right, toppled over. The small thud, and the sound of creaking wood scared the shit out of the guards!
They didn't know what they were seeing, but it was getting close to a horror movie now. Caskets weren't supposed to move themselves, not in any world or universe! The people in those caskets were definitely not supposed to move either.
"Whose there?" The second guard called out, and then jumped in the mud, slowly approaching the seventeen caskets spread out at the bottom of the ditch. "This is weird, man… Are they all alive again, or did you forget to kill the kid?"
Before the other could answer, Winston leaped out of the mud in the blink of an eye, and grabbed the sword right off of the second guard's hand! This barely took any effort, because the guards had been distracted already, and had not been so worried about an unarmed, naked young man in the mud. This was their undoing.
Winston's fingers were burning like a motherfucker, especially after he grabbed the sword. They were bleeding, after all, but he soldiered through, and used the iron Short-sword to land a nasty cut on the second guard's hip, a split second before he landed back in the mud.
Afterwards, he rolled over, and sliced the first guard across the back, making the both of them howl in pain!
The first guard even tumbled over, all the way to the bottom of the ditch. He even lost his Longsword in the mud, so now, he was unarmed.
"Disarmed!" Winston exclaimed.
Then he stood up, trying to make a dramatic re-appearance only to lose his footing, and fall on his back. He sunk into the mud again.
Once he managed to stand up once again, he noticed two things. One, the guard that had been right in front of him a moment ago, was no longer there. He was making a run for it, or specifically, limping towards the other side of the cavern.
Second, when he looked over to the bottom of the ditch, he saw that the other guard had been killed. Lydia bashed one of the wooden stakes in his head, nailing him to the ground.
"Nice!" He exclaimed.
"Get the other one!" She shouted, "He's gonna call for backup!"
Lydia then tossed the other stake that she had, towards him, and he caught it. Judging from the fact that it smelled like shit, he was sure that this was the same stake that had been up his ass roughly ten minutes ago.
"Poetic…" He grunted.
With every bit of his strength, he made it out of the ditch, and then chased after the other guard.
When he noticed that the guard was already too far away, close to the wooden door at the other end of the cavern, he had to rely on a more desperate move.
Winston ignored the burning pain on his occupied hands, and tossed the stake towards the guard with all his might, praying to the Gods that he wouldn't miss.
This was when he noticed that his fingers started burning even more than they were supposed to! He felt as if he dipped them in hot water, and paired with the fact that he was already bleeding through his fingers, this was not a good feeling to experience. He shouted in pain, and toppled over!
A strong thud sounded out afterwards. He looked up, only to see the remaining guard essentially shot dead, with the wooden, shit-stained stake through his heart. Winston was even sure that he had broken parts of the man's spine!
"The fuck am I?" He grunted, "A vampire hunter?"
Between his deep sighs and grunts as he found some relief, he started piecing some memories of his together. Something he couldn't have done earlier on because of the constant panic he was in. He browsed through a few memories of the past body owner, and managed to recall the use of magic.
"Hmm… Gravity?" He sat up, "The Gods are playing a joke on me after all, aren't they?"