Day 239 - Hammer of Pain

 Hammer of Pain

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

The hatchet was borderline psychic. Sort of. If you held it, you were definitely linked to something. Maybe it was the to the hatchet, or maybe to your opponent or maybe the hatchet itself was seeing a glimpse of the future and relaying the information? Nef didn’t know. He never felt psychic growing up, but when he first touched the hatchet, he thought he saw a momentary flash of the world through the eyes of his father. His father smiled at him and gave him a knowing wink.

Since then, he had learned to deal with a sort of double vision. He could filter things pretty well to understand what was actually happening and what was about to. The hatchet delivering the information made the most sense to him since he didn’t seem to have any sway in what he learned or how or when or why. Maybe there was a filter system. A need to know for his own benefit. Sometimes he would see was about to happen or what someone else was thinking or what someone else was seeing. Sometimes he could use the hatchet as a tool and he saw nothing. It was just a tool, chopping and cutting away. He supposed advanced knowledge then wouldn’t do much good. That is unless he was about to chop his own fingers off or something. So far, no visions of that.

None of that really made it any easier to fight his brother. He somewhat got a sense of things to come, with just a split second to know he should shift or dodge or parry. His brother was fast, faster than him. The split second was barely enough. The force of the hammer swinging through the air was enough to knock him back. If his brother pressed the attack, levied multiple swings in a row, he wasn’t sure he would be able to dodge, split second warning or not. He just wasn’t fast enough to keep this up.

Nef had hoped that he could inflict enough damage to slow Torben down, but so far, he had no luck.

Nef missed a step and the hammer collided with his left arm. Nef screamed in as he was thrown through the air. This was definitely one of the hammers that inflicted pain, he thought.

Somehow the hatchet was still in his right hand. He could sense his brother’s approach. The shadow was cast. Nef didn’t have time to stand or dodge or roll away. He twisted his body and tried to raise the hatchet upwards fast enough to catch whatever was heading down towards him. He prayed it would be enough.