Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ESCAPE (03/04/21)
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TITLE: When the Wind Blew | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
03/09/21 -
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The brisk breeze stirred up a salty spray as we bent over examining our find. The torchlight hidden inside a clay jar gave it an eerie form. “Can I touch it?” Joshua asked, already running his hand over its spiny exoderm. “Can I take it with us?”
The mob rushed around us and I was afraid he’d be trampled if I let him pursue his quest. “Throw it back in the water,” I urged.
“Hurry!” barked an old man riding by on a donkey. “They’re coming!”
It had been a crazy few weeks before this midnight escapade. The whole country shattered around us. If anything could go wrong it had. Packing had been rushed. The adrenaline turned the world upside down as a river of panicked bodies rushed away from the only home we’d known. None of that seemed to phase Joshua as we crouched together examining the sea star.
Joshua scooped up the five-armed treasure and tossed it toward the wall of water on his right. It fell short into a small pool. The sea star flexed its arms and shuffled toward the center of the depression.
“Come!” I beckoned. “We have to go. There’s not much time to get to the other side.”
Joshua looked back from where we’d come. A huge pillar of fire stood on the shoreline. He looked ahead at the endless mob of humanity struggling ahead of us into the dark void. “Let me try again. If I don’t get him into the water he might get hurt. I need to help him get away.”
“Fine, just hurry.”
Joshua knelt by the edge of the pond and stretched out to snag the arm of the sea star. He pulled back with just the arm. “Oh, no!” he called. “I broke him.”
The horror on his face was unmistakable. I wasn’t sure what to say. He held the twitching arm in the palm of his hand and then tried shaking it off as the little suckers hung onto him. “Get it off!” he howled. “Get it off!”
I snatched the sea star arm off his hand and hurled it into the sea wall. I was sure a silvery body twice my size flashed by and devoured it. The stragglers behind us were thinning out so I snatched up the remainder of the sea star and hurled it after its arm. “Now, hurry!” I hollered.
I slung Joshua onto my back and tried to run. One of the generals galloped by on a horse. “Let me take the boy,” he said. “The army is preparing to charge in after us. There isn’t time to delay.”
I slung the boy up in front of the warrior and pushed my weary legs into a jog. The spray of the liquid walls seemed stronger. The wall of fire visibly moved into the trench between the seas. There was no question that our pursuers would be close behind.
It had been a mistake to keep the boy. I should have sent him ahead with his mother. I had stayed behind to clean up the camp, not really comprehending how much trouble we could be in. Panic surged through everyone and I wanted to keep him calm. God had protected us this long – he could do it a little longer.
A crowded cart pulled by two horses bounced by loaded down with several old men. “Hurry! They called. The Egyptians are forming up for a charge.”
That was all I needed to reach for another level of courage and strength. The wind, blowing toward us, brought the roar and clatter of an army unleashed. I scooped up an old woman collapsed on the edge of the path. She was screeching in terror but I picked her up like she was a child and ran.
A soldier took her from me as I collapsed on the far shore. The wind stopped dead. The crashing waters behind me snaked out and washed over my feet but came no further. Moses himself stepped up beside me with his rod held high. “The battle belongs to the Lord!”
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