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Post by Crystal on Sept 15, 2009 10:06:42 GMT -5
The fish was extremely displeased. It had been carted around in a little plastic case, doused in cold rainwater, jolted about, and now it sat on the counter of an alien laboratory, hungry.
Very hungry.
It watched with even more displeasure at the drama unfolding before it. There went a chair on the tall gray one's head. There went the chair again! And now the female one was rushing toward the unclothed male. Bah! And between all three of them, not one was stopping to give it food!
The fish paused on its' observations and reflected, with great philosophical bent, on the foolishness of the two legged insistence on clothing. Now, if they'd only had sense to grow scales and become cold-blooded, they'd never have need again. Very stupid. But anyway, it was very, very hungry.
Crystal paused, sucking in deep breaths, her heart thudding and her whole body shaking as she stared at the Mythic scientist at her feet. He wasn't dead, but he wouldn't wake for a long time. She bent down, dragged him to a sitting position, and covered him with a blanket she filched from the other end of the laboratory. It was strange, but she felt a huge amount of guilt somehow, now that she'd hit him over the head several times. And she certainly felt guilt for repaying this way the few ounces of compassion that had come her way when she had thrown herself at his feet and begged in her few Mythic words to be able to accompany the convulsing Kit. Crystal had bargained on human traits breeding true, and the dice had fallen in her favour just this once.
She turned to the drugs the Mythic had been mixing, sniffed at each of them, cautiously combined a few more and prayed to her God above that she was not mistaken. She pulled Kit's limp arm toward her, prodded about to find a vein, and pumped the drugs into his bloodstream. Then she swabbed him off and hunted the laboratory. They must escape and they must escape now, but the mere sight of Kit naked still sent fear through her veins. So he had been drugged – so he had been hurt. It didn't change the fact that he'd looked at her with lust in his glazed and drugged eyes and she'd nearly expired in terror because she'd trusted him down to her bones.
Crystal struck gold on her second hurried rifle through the cold metal room. There were discarded clothes in what must serve as the communal bin, discarded human clothes. Most were torn and others were patched, but she pulled on skirt and shirt and pants and dressed Kit with hands that fumbled from hurry and fear. "Kit," she whispered to him as she worked, "Kit, you gotta wake up, you hear me? That sedative couldn't have knocked you out long. There was barely a quarter of it he got pumped into you. Kit, you wake now, you hear?" There were tears now on her face, and she shook in reaction and the horrible feeling of a falling axe above her head. "Wake up, please, wake up, I can't carry you all by myself, wake up now!"
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Sept 15, 2009 10:07:16 GMT -5
The lone caravan thundered across the plains, its wheels rattling under the abuse of being driven across harsh uneven ground. It wasn't the most stealthy of escapes, but the caravan was sturdy and the beasts that pulled it powerful.
They had argued in the lab over the fish, Kit relenting only because they couldn't stay any longer, and Crystal insistent on not leaving it behind. Their escape was messy, rushing through corridors and turnings blindly, following the scent of fresh air, and staying away from the metallic smell of blood, or the bitter sour stink of rot. Mythics soon caught on, forcing them down deeper corridors and darker twists, and for once, irony stroke them, because cornered , Kit and Crystal stumbled into a stable of sorts, the single caravan ready to go.
In the back of the caravan, obsidian plates marked with Mythic writing lay stacked, half lost in their bid to escape having been thrown out either deliberately to lighten the caravan, or by the ruts and bumps of the tundra plains. The interior of the caravan was heated, meant for Mythic transport as well, their fear of cold protecting the escapees from the harsh weather.
Kit sat outside, directing the caravan as best as he could. The steering mechanism was simple, two bars tied to either beast, pull one and that beast slowed, allowing the caravan to turn. Pull both, and it acted as a brake. The cold wind stung his face, the clothes they salvaged poor protection against the frost, but Kit couldn't bring himself to sit in the caravan with Crystal. Not after he had seen the fear in her eyes, the cold dark fear that accused him. He knew full well what he had tried to do, and as much as he could blame the Mythics, he still couldn't face her.
So he paid his penance by keeping her safe and warm, acting both as lookout and driver of the caravan. The Mythics did try to give chase, but never got far. They had stayed their spears, fearing damage to their only delivery caravan. A couple rode similar beasts to those that drew the caravan, but the cold forced them to turn back before long. Their wild escape threw off any direction Kit had, all he wished was to get as far away from the farm as possible. His arms still trembled, partly from cold, partly from the cocktail of drugs that had been forced into his system so quickly in succession.
Smoke rose on the horizon, but it wasn't the thick wall of smoke from a forest fire. It was a controlled column. Human smoke. Urging the beasts on, Kit held them towards the smoke, hoping it was made from life, and not death.
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Post by Crystal on Sept 15, 2009 10:07:46 GMT -5
"Kit!" Crystal hollered over the sounds of caravan and heat and beast, "Kit, we have to walk the rest of the way! We'll lead them straight to the hideout!"
She crouched in the caravan, dismantled the protective covers for the heating implements, and smashed the insides grimly with a few obsidian plates. Ah, the Mythics would not be happy when they caught up to the caravan, not at all. Well, if they ever caught up. She'd have burnt the thing if she could, but it was much too good a distraction.
When the caravan slowed, she hopped down, barely waiting for Kit to get down himself before eyeing the beasts. They were oddly shaped and quite dark, six-legged and red eyed, and very carnivorous. Metal or bone glinted from their feet, and they shook in their harness, obviously restless and hungry and quite angry. With a shudder, she recognized them as one of the species that had dropped… yes, it had dropped, straight onto a girl she had hoped to save. Was it barely a few days back? A week? A month? Crystal couldn't remember, but she wondered if these animals, too, had originated from Earth – or if they were native to wherever the Mythics had been living those long horrible years.
She stepped forward, jerked the pole, and one of the beasts keened in anger, whirled and dashed at her. The pole redirected it's wrath, trapping it within its cage with its partner, and it bucked in fury before the two finally coordinated and rushed past her.
Crystal flung herself backward to avoid being run down, landed wrong, and heard a distinct crack coming from her upper arm.
The ruined caravan rushed into the distance at an odd angle from the human shelter.
She tried to prop herself back up, but the pain rushing through her arm made her slump back down again, groping awkwardly with her other hand, and trying her hardest not to black out. It was very hard.
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Sept 15, 2009 10:08:16 GMT -5
As the dust settled, so did the noise. The caravan was hardly the stealthiest form of transport, Kit could still see the silvery grey clouds it kicked up in its anger, broken and torn through plains by its beasts. No Mythics for miles around them, he was sure. A gentle breeze blew, its breath easily slipping through the thin clothes he wore, caressing his skin. An icy lover. She protected them from the Mythics, but she was demanding too. Sparse shrubbery still grew this far north, almost all inedible. In Alaska, during the war, soldiers tried to eat the plants out of hunger. The roots and bark splintered, tough, cutting into their gums and throat. Infection set in within hours. Mercifully, death was quick.
Kit tore what little cloth he could spare from his clothes and made a sling for Crystal's arm. From what little he could tell without hurting her any more, the fracture was deep. Where she had landed swelled with an ugly purple-black, yellow splotches around the edges. At least it was all internal, she would have had a harder time fighting infection as well as nursing the injury. Slinging what little luggage they had over his shoulders, the fish, the rifle, he gently eased his arms under Crystal's knees and back, lifting her into his arms. She was light from hunger, not having eaten for days. Kit wished to leave the fish behind, but he knew Crystal would have none of it.
Warmth from the sun helped his slow trek towards the hideout; thanks to the caravan, Kit figured they would be there before sundown, escaping the harshest winds and cold. The landscape didn't change, the same tundra, the same plants. If it weren't for the sun, Kit knew they would be walking in circles.
When Crystal finally stirred a little in his arms, he held her a little closer to keep her warm.
"I had to do this once before, y'know. Back in Alaska. Mythics wiped out our whole platoon, almost killed my best friend, Cory too. We'd been friends since childhood, joined the army together, we both wanted to see the stars. They took out his left arm, but we escaped. Miles away from base, tundra all around us. It was snowing too. A long story short, he died before we reached base. Broke his parents. Broke his fiancée. I vowed then on never to let a friend die in my arms again. So we're getting you to this hideout alive. Even if I have to give a leg for it to happen," Kit paused, reflecting on more recent events, finding the words to say. Remembering the cold look of fear in Crystal's eyes. "About what happened in the farm, I.." he faltered, unsure if an apology would be enough for her, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.. to hurt you. I wouldn't. I.." he shook his head, "sorry."
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Post by Crystal on Sept 15, 2009 10:09:05 GMT -5
Crystal never heard his apology. She had blacked out when Kit had lifted her into his arms, and consciousness never returned until a few days later, laid gently on a medical bed with her arm bound, covered in quilts and blankets and lovely white sheets.
When she swam back into consciousness, she was first aware of the ceiling – it was white, this ceiling, not dark rock like their old hideout. This one was white, painted white, and from the smell she knew they were underground. Deep underground, not at all like the cave their old hideout had been.
Crystal made an effort then to turn her head, and her whole body hurt with it. But there was someone at her bedside, a tall thin man, and she opened her mouth and whispered in a dry, cracking, harsh voice, "Father? Reverend father?"
She swallowed. "You're dead."
The man turned, and walked with quick striding steps to her side, and took her hand. Now that he was closer, she could see that he looked not at all like the old man. He was perhaps a few decades younger, with a long face and a long nose and long blue eyes. "No, I'm not dead," he said, and his voice was deep and reassuring and reminded her of Kit. "I'm not your priest, either. I'm a doctor, and I've been looking after you. You've been out for the past two days. I'm glad you're awake. We've been trying to feed you through a tube, and it wasn't working well enough."
She tried to focus on him. "Food."
When he had fed her some hastily warmed, tasteless porridge, Crystal sunk back into the bed, exhausted and still horribly hungry. "Doctor?" she murmured. "Kit?"
"He'll come soon, Crystal. He's been worried about you. He'll come to see you soon."
Crystal paused, trying to recollect her thoughts and how she ought to react to this.
"No," she said suddenly, clearly, and the fear came back into her mind as fresh as the minute she had flinched back against the cage walls and felt his drugged and groping hand on her body, fresh as the moment it shattered the childlike trust in Kit she had harboured this long terrible while. "No," she said again, looking straight at the doctor with clear and lucid dark brown eyes. "Scared," she murmured, closing them and sinking back into the sheets. "He can't control himself."
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Sept 15, 2009 10:09:18 GMT -5
"Suffered some trauma, we'll have to keep her for a little longer." Pause. "Yes, she's getting the best care we can give her."
The northern stronghold was large and grey with concrete and steel girders. Large enough to have been a small city before the Mythics came. Yet for all its size, when summer comes and the snow stops falling, it too would be the victim of more Mythic raids. Nobody had children in here, pregnant mothers were a delicacy to the Mythics; and the tender flesh of a young child was much prized. Kit had donated their two rifles to the armoury, and his blood to their only hospital, in exchange for shelter and Crystal's treatment. The doctors here were much better than the medical staff the had back at the hideout, they certainly didn't lack experience.
Despite the Mythics' siege, rudimentary business thrived within the city. Kit once spotted a circle of ragged men rolling dice, bottles of whisky as their wagers. At night, from his cold one-bedroom shelter, he saw the few farmers dragging corpses under the moonlight; even the plants needed food.
Upon the wall of his room, Kit had tacked the map they had salvaged from the hideout. They had ventured further north than they expected to; the farm they escaped from should have been a small human outpost; their original aim. In a way, it was a good thing. Mythic farms were much sparser this far north, and they had a clear path to the abandoned airbase. A day's journey, maybe two if it snowed.
Drawn up below the map was a neatly traced layout of the city, a supply deopt circled in red. They couldn't live off the fish alone (who currently swam circles in his tank, doing all he could to stop the water from freezing), certainly not for two days in the tundra without other supplies. He figured it best not to tell Crystal, she wouldn't approve of biting the hand that fed them.
"Kit?" came the doctor's voice, followed by knocking on the door. Kit hastily stuffed the drawn map under the bed and opened the door. "She's awake," the doctor smiled.
Kit stopped short of the door to Crystal's room, hesitating before opening it slowly.
"Hey, how're you feeling?" Kit asked.
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Post by Crystal on Sept 15, 2009 10:10:49 GMT -5
She had had some time to think now. And beyond a doubt she was more coherent. And beyond a doubt, she decided, that hadn't been Kit who had hurt her. Beyond a doubt. And she pushed away her lingering terror with a deep breath.
It hadn't been him, she whispered to reassure herself. He would never have hurt me. Never. Never.
And between breaths, Crystal calmed her fears and then sat on them firmly. It hadn't been fear, she realized slowly, so much as betrayal. And hurt. Unreasonable of her to expect it of him, but she had come to regard Kit as some sort of protector – able to overcome drugs or wounds for her.
She was still pondering that line of thought when Kit entered the room, and she mustered a smile for him. "Not bad," she said softly, "but really tired. How's the fish? How are you?"
From behind Kit, the doctor entered the room, and she smiled warmly at him too. "No other patients today?" she asked.
The long-faced doctor shut his clipboard with a snap. "Good to see you awake," and his smile was a genuine one. "Winter is slow. We have the usual – flu, frostbite, pneumonia – but nothing Mythic related. Not just yet. The hospital concentrates on research during this time of the year."
Crystal started then, and turned dark eyes to him. "Research!" she said.
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Sept 15, 2009 10:11:10 GMT -5
Persuaded by Crystal's enthusiasm for research, the doctor led them down evenly lit corridors to where they conducted their research. Along the way, he gestured to the different facilities; operating theatres, diagnosis rooms, and treatment wards; pride brimming in his voice. He stopped the impromptu tour speech only when they passed the maternity ward. A large glass window still afforded a good view of the room within. Before the Mythics came, parents would crowd around the clear window, gazing affectionately on the three dozen plastic cradles lined up four by nine. The cradles still remained, untouched since the last birth in the stronghold.
They arrived at a set of double swing doors with metal rimmed circular windows, typical of research laboratories. Pausing for dramatic effect, the doctor gave a boyish grin, pushed the doors open and introduced them to the main center of research in the entire stronghold.
Researchers, easily recognised by their white lab coats and blue face masks, crowded around row after row of dense foilage. Plants flourished in neatly arranged plastic containers, leaves spilling over the edges and stalks climbing to the roof, some curled around the smooth pipes that criss-crossed the ceiling. Kit recognised cucumbers, tomatoes, pumpkins, strawberries, pineapples; all sorts of fruits and vegetables he hadn't seen ever since the Mythics landed. The air was humid and warm, clinging to his skin as the doctor walked them through the rows of plants.
"Malnutrition and starvation kill more people this far north than Mythic attacks. The soil is too poor; too cold to sustain conventional agriculture. This center alone produces more than eighty percent of all the food consumed in our city. It doesn't look very big, but our productivity levels are three times that of conventional agriculture, even before the war," the doctor explained with pride.
Plants weren't the answer to Kit though. He wasn't sure what he expected. A new weapon, a discovered weakness. Something to fight the Mythics with. He was grateful when the doctor handed him and Crystal both fresh tomatoes, the crisp flesh a welcome difference from fish.
"Doctor, a new shipment of fertilizer has just been signed in," an intern interrupted, her blue eyes bright with promise. She was strong and healthy, different from the weary, thin people that populated most other remaining settlements. Pretty, Kit admitted to himself. Her hazel locks swished as she flashed him a smile.
"Excellent," the doctor replied, "we can't grow all these without the fertilizer our brave scouts bring in from the tundra. Ethelyn, would you mind showing our guests the fertilizer processing facility? I have to inspect this batch to make sure they're free of contaminants." Nodding, the doctor excused himself and left them with Ethelyn, the intern who beckoned for them to follow her to the back of the facility.
"We process our fertilizer on-site, separating the material the scouts bring in into their base component and then recombining it to cater for particular plants. As you can imagine, the process is extremely efficient. One unit of base material can produce enough to feed a family for a week." The words barely reached Kit. He was a soldier, not a farmer. The lists of compounds the intern listed out made little sense to him, the most he got out of it was listening to the intern's voice.
The half-eaten tomato in his hand dropped to the floor when Ethelyn opened the doors to the processing facility. Researchers carried naked Mythic bodies, most of them a dark blue from exposure to cold, and sprayed them with a harsh jet of water before handing them off to other teams that dissected the bodies and separated bone from flesh. In the background, the intern's voice went on, "Our scouts find groups of these bodies in the tundra. Mythics don't last long in the cold, and the weather preserves them perfectly. We are able to extract a hundred percent of the bodies' nutrients. Nothing goes to waste here in this facility," she said happily, oblivious to the tomato on the floor.
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Post by Crystal on Sept 15, 2009 10:11:36 GMT -5
Crystal had been looking at the moon. From this distance, there were dark flecks on it, dark flecks of humanity and their settlements. When the Mythics had invaded, man had fled to the moon. It was the only thing they could do.
She'd heard rumours of a city there, an beautiful underground city filled with light. New Manhattan. New Chicago. New Singapore and New Beijing. They were all one now; they were all melded into one great city on the underside of the moon. What was left of Man had found underground water there, and by recycling it, they had thrived. And the Mythics had never gone there. Never. Crystal chewed at her tomato and wondered why.
Of course, the Moon, no matter how beautifully silver it shone, couldn't ever have been half as lovely and abundant as Earth.
Then she heard a thump.
And she turned around.
And she flinched, just a little bit.
She couldn't take her eyes off the cold dead Mythics. They'd been enemies, for Heaven's sakes. They'd tried to eat her! They'd tried... they'd tried to make Kit rape her. And Crystal swallowed hard and looked down at her tomato. Now she was eating them. And she wondered why it hit her so hard, because back in the old days of safety, when Science had eclipsed all other thoughts, she'd have shrugged it off with logical thoughts about wastage. It was certainly logical. Wouldn't it be difficult, she reasoned past a coldness in her chest, to explain to a starving man that he couldn't eat these beautiful fruits because... just because they'd used as fertilizer... a species that had once been them?
How complicated it was! And the people didn't know. She'd meant to tell the doctor. They didn't know. So they would live, thinking no more of it than planting a fish in the roots of a wilting rosebush. They didn't know.
Crystal swallowed again, past the coldness, and turned away. She wouldn't tell them. Somehow, she managed to finish the tomato, and she turned back to the exit numbly as Ethelyn led them out. "It's always a shock to first see it," the girl said to them with the shrug of a person who had never seen death nor truly known hunger. "But they're there. It would be a crime not to use them."
"Isn't it a crime to use them, too?" Crystal said softly. "They're rather like us if you think about it."
Ethelyn gave her only the shocked, lofty expression of a girl accustomed to not thinking about it. "They're animals," she pointed out. "They eat us, even. And they're already dead. It would be even worse to waste them: maybe you have to be a scientist to understand."
Crystal smiled at the jibe, and shook her copper brown curls. "I suppose so. I've met some Mythic scientists."
They were back in her little hospital room, and she let Kit help her as she clambered into bed. "Kit," she said suddenly, holding out her hand to him, missing their old camaraderie all of a sudden, what they'd had together before the cage and the drugs. And the scientists.
"Kit," she said again, "What do you think of the Moon?"
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Sept 15, 2009 10:11:51 GMT -5
Kit took the outstretched hand in his own, locking his fingers into hers. He admired how soft and slender her hand was in comparison to his, a reminder that despite all the fighting and running, she was still a girl.
"I think the moon is a wonderful place to start life all over again," he said, remembering the friends and dreams he had before the Mythics came and took it all away. "It certainly would be nice to settle down in one place, maybe start a family. I think the moon would be real wonderful." He paused, thinking of what it would be like once they got there. He'd get a job as a mechanic, certainly all those years of repairing machines in the middle of war would be put to good use. Rent out an apartment, maybe even get married. Shaking a head at his own dreams, he let go of Crystal's hand, "you should get some rest, tomorrow will be another long day I suspect; and I have to go feed a particularly starving fish."
Awkwardly, he bent over and gave her a hug. He wasn't sure why, but it felt like the thing to do.
Outside the door to his rented apartment, Ethelyn stood waiting. "You're leaving this place, aren't you?" she asked, arms crossed over her chest. She wasn't wearing her lab coat anymore, instead, a pair of salvaged jeans and a well-worn coat. Kit wondered what to say. In the silence, she blurted out, "take me with you. You know as well as I do that this place isn't safe anymore. Every day they come closer. Every day more of our scouts never return. It's not safe anymore."
Kit found her blue eyes pleading intently, face-to-face with the truth that someday she'd be dragged off to one of their farms. A truth repressed under hours of research because she couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't sure what to say.
"I don't know," he said hesitantly, as he unlocked the door.
"Please, I beg you!" she cried, flinging her arms around his waist. Not sure what else to do, he led her into the apartment and set her down on his bed. The fish looked on, its eyes staring holes into the glass of its container, willing food towards itself. Torn between fish and girl, Kit gave Ethelyn a blanket and dropped in a healthy amount of food for the fish. The fish didn't know that its food was just dried up flakes made from the clones of itself. In a way, Kit thought, it was like the people here, eating food grown from Mythic bodies.
Ethelyn wrapped the blanket around herself, sitting upright on the bed. "I can get you food, supplies, anything from this place. Just please, please promise me you won't leave without me."
She's too young, Kit reasoned. She'd slow us down. She wouldn't survive.
"Tomorrow, we'll talk about this," he said, pulling together a makeshift bed of clothes and wrapping himself in them.
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Post by Crystal on Sept 15, 2009 10:12:21 GMT -5
Standing outside Kit's door, Crystal raised an eyebrow as Ethelyn crept out miserably. The girl didn't see her until she shifted a little, adjusting her healing but still hurt arm.
"What can you do?" she asked bluntly. And Ethelyn jumped a foot in the air. "You scared me!" she said crossly, and looked down her nose at Crystal. "I," she informed her, "can... uh... I can cook."
Crystal frowned and fought off the urge to give the girl a slamming setdown. The child had been so desperate with Kit only a moment ago. Kit, she thought jealously, had been hers only for way too long. It rankled suddenly to have another girl in the picture; a marvellously pretty one at that. It was strange how proprietary she felt, when in the big picture it really didn't matter. "So can I," she said to Ethelyn, "for that matter, Kit's surprisingly good at it, too. Half-fried heart of wolf and all that."
Ethelyn didn't turn a hair, although Crystal caught a slight quiver in the curve of her mouth. "I'm a biologist. In training. I know about plants and things. I can be useful to you."
"It doesn't do a lot of good when you're in a cage," Crystal said, a little more kindly. "It's a frightening thing, being in a cage," she said, almost to herself. "There's always a lot of women; and only one man. Have you ever bred rats? It doesn't matter," she sighed. "They're not stupid, the Mythics. Have you seen them alive? They come charging at you, and you throw up your hands and you're rooted to the spot, and you just know you're going to die. Can you shoot a gun?"
"Yes," Ethelyn said stubbornly. "I can shoot. Really well. I can hit a target a block away. They teach all of us how."
"Can you hit one when it's thin and bony with pale skin and dark eyes, and it's rushing toward you with a scythe, looking like the Grim Reaper come to Earth? Can you hit one when your knees are shaking and you're throwing up inside? Can you defend yourself," and her voice caught, "when they drug Kit in there with an aphrodisiac, and he comes walking at you, and there's this terrible blank look in his eyes and his hand is creeping in.." and she choked back a sob.
The girl's eyes softened and for a moment, they seemed to reach some understanding, some consensus. "I don't know," she whispered, "but I'll try."
Crystal studied her for a long while.
"We've tried to save people before," she said in an abrupt manner. "They've never lived. We saved four girls from the pens, Kit and I; only one got out, and she ran into the woods screaming. Then there was the Reverend and his two parish members. I loved the Reverend," she added sadly. "He was gentle and kind, always. But he went to see God; he ran at the Mythics like a fool and they ate him. The daughter died saving her father and the father died anyway. If you think you can live through those odds, you can come with us."
Turning, she walked back down the corridor. She'd been going to ask Kit for something... but he was probably asleep by now. It was too bad. Then she paused.
"Ethelyn?" she said over her shoulder. "If you come and you die on us... I'll never forgive you."
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Post by KitClairvoyance on Sept 15, 2009 10:13:15 GMT -5
Kit woke up with a soreness in his neck that wouldn't go away no matter how much stretching he subjected it to. The fish was already up, swimming vigorously in circles to keep his lovely tank water warm and not frozen. Light streamed in through the cracks in the frosted window, the world a tizzy of a blur to the just-awoken man. Ethelyn was gone, he didn't expect her to stay the night. She probably had better quarters, and perhaps over her sleep she had let go of her crazy plan to tag along. Groping in the pile of clothes, he found a clean pair of pants, underwear, and a sturdy shirt. He was thankful to the doctor who gave him the clothes when he brought Crystal to him, though he couldn't say Crystal would have approved of him sleeping in a pile of clean clothes, when he hadn't had a proper shower for weeks.
Taking the clothes in a bundle tucked under his arm, he wandered down the corridor to the communal showers. There was only one shower room, but the day was divided into times for females and males. Even in the most desperate of times, humans found ways to keep their lives decent. Nobody else was awake, so Kit had the entire room to himself. The water wasn't heated, it was too expensive to keep hot water this far north, but cold water was what he needed to jolt him wide awake. His muscles clenched at the ice cold water, and he could have sworn his skin shrank too. Scrubbed down cleanly, he put on the clean change of clothes, and went to greet the day.
Back in his room, he consulted the map he had tacked up on the wall. It was easily a two, maybe three weeks' walk from here to the airbase. Along the way, there was only two other human settlements, one a research outpost, another was a shelter, similar to the one he and Crystal came from. He did hope Ethelyn chose not to come along, it would be hard to feed all three of them and make the journey in decent time. The weather this far north killed as easily as the Mythics did.
Food was going to be their main concern. So would shelter.
Ethelyn came in without warning, dropping a bag full of dried fruits on the floor. "I won't die," she announced with determination. Kit beckoned her over to the map, and pointed to where they were.
"Between here and the nearest human settlement, there's nothing for weeks around. No humans. No Mythics. No nothing. Frostbite and hypothermia will eat away at your limbs, leaving you crippled for life. If we run out of food, there's nothing to hunt, nothing to grow," Kit ticked off the dangers on his fingers as he called them out. Ethelyn nodded, hanging on to every word.
"I'm still coming," she said, her voice softer.
"We leave today, just before noon then."
"That's it?" Ethelyn exclaimed, "no goodbyes, no thank yous?" realising what she just said, she bit her lower lip, "I'll get as many supplies for us as we can. Don't tell the doctor though, he'll want me to stay."
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