Just Breath
Breath in.
Breath out.
Inhale.
Exhale.
With every breath you can feel the world slow down.
Inhale.
Arthur raises his blade.
Exhale.
Arcs toward the man below him.
Inhale.
Fast swing once so sharp it could cut air, now slows to a crawl.
Exhale.
The world moves in slow motion around you.
Inhale.
Until it just…
Exhale.
"Stops."
The once sudden noise of battle, the shouts and screams of the fallen, have been silenced.
There is only you and your breathing.
You close your eyes.
Sixty-six seconds.
That is all the time you have before the world starts turning again.
You appraise the battle field. You must take in every detail.
Two hundred soldiers.
Seventeen stone golems.
Five sorcerers riding on griffons.
Two High Priestesses of the Old Religion.
You raise an eyebrow, impressed despite yourself.
Morgana really went all out this time.
The soldiers surround the castle walls in sentry positions, occasionally attacking a knight here and there.
They're big, bigger than even the tallest human, and carry huge swords and weighted armor.
Not normal soldiers. Just your luck.
One soldier was half turned around as a knight pointed to something in the distance, raising his sword behind his back to behead the inhuman soldier.
Other than their strategic formation, they seem to show no sights of intelligence.
Forty-seven seconds.
The golems.
Twenty feet tall.
Impenetrable to the sharpest of stone.
Currently smashing at the castle walls.
No weakness to the naked eye.
Thirty-one seconds.
The sorcerers.
All from middle to old age.
Eyes glowing from barely hidden power.
They've been studying magic for a long time.
The griffons.
Huge.
Terrifying.
All five wearing plated armor.
Also impenetrable to nothing but the strongest magic.
Nineteen seconds.
The Priestesses.
Highly trained.
Near unlimited amounts of power.
Able to been the very fabric of nature to their whims.
More powerful than anything they have brought.
Ten seconds.
Five different forces.
Nine seconds.
Each with a different type of skill set.
Eight seconds.
Separate, they could take down whole armies.
Seven seconds.
But together…
Six seconds.
…they're unstoppable.
Five seconds.
A normal man would give up.
Four seconds.
A normal man would succumb to such hopeless odds.
Three seconds.
A normal man would be resigned to their inevitable death.
Two seconds.
Your eyes flash gold as a smirk crosses your face.
One second.
But since when have you ever been normal?
Time speeds up, voices rise in pitch, dying screams fill the air.
Show time.