Survivor- World of Monsters 2

by Michael Brightburn

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mirabelle said, exasperated. “I don’t have a token anyway.”

  “But she does,” Imogen said, looking at Eliza. “It’s your choice, obviously, but it might be something that really helps us out.”

  Eliza didn’t respond, and they continued eating in silence.

  After several minutes, Eliza set down her food and said, “All right. Here goes.”

  “Whoa,” Cal said, “you’re going to do it now?”

  “Should I not?”

  “It seems… hasty. We should prepare.”

  “You didn’t prepare,” Mirabelle countered. “Didn’t even tell us you were doing it.”

  “Well yeah, but mine said strength.”

  “Already done,” Eliza said.

  They all turned to look at her.

  “Really?” Mirabelle asked.

  She nodded. “Yep.”

  “Do you… feel any different?” Cal asked.

  Eliza stood, looking around. “No.”

  Cal was briefly distracted by her fully exposed body, the smooth fold between her thighs, but quickly reined in his arousal. “Which one did you choose?”

  “Absorb.”

  “Maybe it means you can absorb damage?” Cal guessed.

  “Not too eager to test that theory out.”

  “We should test it somehow,” Imogen said, “before we get attacked again.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  Imogen leaned forward and grabbed a fruit from the basket and tossed it to her. “Absorb that. If it’s like, you absorb it into you, at least it’s edible.”

  Eliza focused on it, and then her hand suddenly disappeared.

  She stumbled back, dropping the fruit, staring at where her hand had just been.

  Except now Cal saw it hadn’t actually disappeared, but instead taken on the texture and color of the fruit she’d held.

  “Holy shit.” She shook her hand out, as if to rid it of the foreign color and texture.

  She shook it so hard that a piece flew off.

  Cal’s stomach lurched as her finger sailed into the fire.

  “My finger!” she shrieked and leapt for it, snatching it out of the flames with her good hand.

  Cal laughed, though he knew he shouldn’t, he knew it was terrible, but it was also for some reason funny.

  “Don’t laugh! I just lost my finger!”

  “Maybe you can put it back on,” Mirabelle suggested.

  Eliza stuck the fruit-finger back on her hand, pressing and holding it for several seconds before reluctantly letting go.

  Then she held out her hand and when her finger didn’t drop off, let out a sigh of relief.

  She made a fist and the finger fell off once more. She shrieked again and managed to catch it before it fell into the fire.

  Mirabelle got up and got the trough of water, bringing it over to her. “Here, put it in water.”

  Eliza looked at her like she was insane. “Why?”

  “Because that’s what you do if you lose a bodypart. Put it in water.

  “Where did you hear that? I know you’re like, from the eighties, and they had some pretty crazy ideas, but that’s…” She shook her head.

  “Just try it, would you? Maybe it will help it stick together. Like glue.”

  Eliza looked dubious, but put her hand into the water, pressing the finger on again. “I don’t think this is going to work.

  “Focus on it,” Imogen suggested. “Try absorbing it again.”

  Eliza looked at her, nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay.” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then opened them again, staring hard at her hand in the trough Mirabelle held.

  Mirabelle suddenly shrieked, dropping the trough.

  “Goddammit,” Eliza said.

  “What’s wrong?” Cal asked, then saw: Eliza’s hand had disappeared again.

  “Wow,” she said, holding her arm in front of her, which terminated at a stump.

  But as Cal stared, he realized it actually didn’t, saw the shimmering outline of a hand, the light from the flame glinting off the edges.

  “Shit,” Imogen said flatly, her tone only slightly impressed. “You got your finger back.”

  49

  They experimented with more things, like seeing if Eliza could become two things at once (she couldn’t, other than flesh and something else) and she even—willingly and of her own accord—put her clothes back on so she could test if she could change what she was wearing into other substances like she could her own body.

  She couldn’t do this either, and when she stood up against the tree it looked like it had a loincloth and top floating in front of it.

  She could change into the material of her clothes, but not change the clothes themselves.

  She stripped naked again, then pressed herself against the tree and disappeared.

  Mirabelle clapped. “You’re totally invisible!”

  Eliza walked away from the trunk, looking like a treant—a walking tree—as she did, her skin, hair, and even eyes the texture and color of bark, an exact match to the tree.

  “Well that’s handy,” Eliza said, turning back to flesh. “But I’m not sure how it’s going to help us against the next wave.”

  Imogen was frowning at her.

  “What?” Eliza asked.

  “Your cuts are gone.”

  She was right, Cal saw. The few wounds that Eliza had left were now completely healed.

  “That will be useful against the waves,” Mirabelle said.

  Eliza nodded in agreement, running her fingers over the places where cuts had been. “Not even scars,” she said wonderingly.

  “Step into the fire,” Imogen suggested.

  Eliza looked at her, shocked. “Just because I can heal, doesn’t mean I want to test the limits of my ability if I don’t have to.”

  “If you can absorb other things, maybe you can absorb fire. You could absorb water.”

  Eliza slowly nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. But I’m not stepping into it.” She knelt and reached her hand out, placing it over the flames, hesitated, shook her head, then plunged her hand in.

  Her face tensed as if in pain, then relaxed a moment later. She pulled her hand out, which now was alight with flame. No, it was flame.

  “What does it feel like?” Mirabelle asked.

  Eliza flexed her hand. “Light. Like it weighs nothing.”

  “It’s like the Human Torch,” Cal said. “Try making your whole body fire.”

  Shaking her head again, Eliza did what she said she wouldn’t, and stepped into the fire.

  The flames didn’t so much travel up her body, as her body became flames from the feet up.

  As soon as her entire body was transformed and she looked exactly like the Human Torch, she began floating up into the air.

  “Oh my God,” Eliza said, her voice sounding vaguely different, though still like her. “I can fly.”

  They all laughed and clapped, except for Rufus, who barked, something they’d never heard him do before. It was a strange bark, like an engine backfiring, and just as loud.

  Eliza shushed him, and the sound of her voice seemed to calm him a little, though he still made little whining noises and stared at her anxiously.

  Then a breeze came up and she screamed as she got blown into the air.

  “Change back!” Cal shouted as she rose higher and higher. She was almost at the edge of the hilltop, and if she didn’t do it soon, like right now, she’d have a long drop. One she wouldn’t survive.

  She suddenly turned back to flesh, the return of weight causing her to drop to the ground like a sack of bricks.

  And the noise when she landed wasn’t any better.

  She screamed out as she landed with a crack.

  They rushed over to her to see a bone jutting out of her leg.

  “Oh fuck,” Mirabelle gasped, putting her hand to her mouth, gaging.

  Rufus was by Eliza’s side, whining, obviously able to tell she was hurt.
<
br />   Cal stared at her, worried but not panicked. He rarely panicked. Well, that and because he was thinking of what they’d noticed a few moments ago. “Your cuts are gone.”

  “My fucking leg’s broken! I’d take the cuts,” Eliza cringed out.

  Cal shook his head and went to get the trough of water, lifting Eliza’s foot and putting it in it.

  “Arrgh! What the fuck are you doing?! Give me a Tylenol flower for fuck’s sake!”

  “Absorb this.”

  “What?” she asked, clearly in too much pain to even think clearly.

  “Do it,” Cal ordered.

  She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, focusing on the transformation.

  She instantly let out a sigh as her leg turned to water. “Well that got rid of the pain…”

  “Now change it back.”

  Eliza shook her head. “This better work.”

  She focused again, and her leg turned once more to flesh.

  “Well holy shit,” she said, leaning back on her hands and looking down at her intact leg.

  50

  “No more testing,” Eliza objected as Cal tried to get her to do yet another experiment. “I’m starving. I think I burned everything I just ate away by transforming. My stomach is so empty it hurts.”

  They’d discovered that while she could transform into anything, she couldn’t create more of the substance. So no doing anything awesome like throw fireballs.

  What Eliza was now objecting to was Cal’s suggestion that she try to throw off her hand like she’d done to her finger in an attempt at a fireball.

  “At least try spitting,” he pleaded.

  “Later. I need to eat before I pass out.” She had transformed only her upper body to fire this time so she didn’t get blown away again, but now shifted completely back to her flesh form, sat down, and immediately began devouring food as Rufus stared on, drooling.

  The other three joined them, returning to their interrupted meal.

  “Kinda makes me wish I had used my upgrade,” Mirabelle mused. She quickly looked at Imogen. “Not that I’m not glad you’re part of our group now. But interfaces aren’t really doing us any good.”

  “No,” Imogen agreed, “but it will if the monsters come. And who knows, maybe I’ll get an upgrade token somehow.”

  When they were done eating, Cal again took the first shift. He wanted them to stick to a schedule, keep things consistent.

  It was another uneventful night, and when his shift was through he woke up Mirabelle, who hadn’t bothered to get dressed before going to sleep.

  The sight of her nude body as she stretched and yawned, of her heavy breasts lifting, begging to be caressed, sent a thrill of arousal through him.

  But his exhaustion overwhelmed his arousal, and he only gave her a quick kiss before heading to bed as she strutted naked to stand guard.

  The last sight he saw was her soft, round ass jiggling ever so slightly, and then his eyes closed and his mind shut down.

  51

  When he woke up in the morning everyone was up and about, all of them dressed.

  He stood up and stretched, feeling strangely out of place as they all looked at him, Richard giving his customary morning salute.

  Eliza and Mirabelle grinned, whereas Imogen only stared at his erection for a few seconds longer than could be explained away as a casual glance, before returning to her work.

  He walked over to the gate where his loincloth was hung and pulled it on, then went to the other side of the tree to relieve himself off the side.

  When he was done he washed up, brushed his teeth, got a drink, and joined them. “Nice work.”

  Mirabelle smiled at him.

  “Bout time you get up, lazy,” Eliza teased. “You didn’t have to get dressed though. I enjoyed the view.” She elbowed Mirabelle. “What about you? You enjoy the view?”

  “Yes,” she muttered, blushing.

  “I see you’re dressed for once,” Cal observed.

  She shrugged. “Don’t want to distract you too much.”

  “You going to help us?” Imogen asked. “Or are you going to flirt all day?”

  “Both do sound enjoyable…”

  They worked on the net, but eventually ran out of cordage.

  “Imogen and I will go get more,” Cal said, getting up.

  “Oh sure, don’t invite me again,” Mirabelle said, though she now no longer minded.

  Cal smiled at her. “Bow and arrows while we’re gone, yeah?”

  She gave him a thumbs-up.

  He pointed at Eliza. “And I want to see you finish that armor you started making from those corpses when I get back.”

  “What’s the rush?” she asked. “They haven’t started to rot yet.”

  “Armor,” Cal said. “Get it done.”

  “Yes sir,” Eliza said flirtatiously, biting her lip.

  As he picked up the only basket they had, he amended his earlier order. “Actually, make some more baskets first.”

  “That’s no fun.”

  Cal nodded. “I know it’s not as engrossing as tearing apart corpses, but it needs to get done.”

  Mirabelle grimaced.

  “Don’t worry,” Eliza assured him, “you can count on me.”

  52

  As Cal and Imogen gathered plants for cordage, they came upon another sliced-off branch.

  “Was this here before?” Cal asked her.

  “I don’t know…” she said, looking around warily.

  “Let’s get our cordage and get back.”

  She nodded, and they resumed their gathering.

  But a few minutes later the scent of something caught Cal’s nose and they followed it to an increasingly familiar sight.

  “Another?” Imogen asked, looking down at the dead body of one of the monsters from the waves. It was one of the flying ones. “And I still don’t know how you smelled this from so far away. I barely smell anything, even up close.”

  He looked at the basket. They still had room for more cordage, but it was enough for now. “You ready to head back?”

  “Why?” She smiled at him. “You afraid?”

  “No. You?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Good,” she repeated. “We’ve got space left in here. Let’s not waste it. Come on.”

  As they continued gathering, Cal noticed that she seemed to be bending over more than she needed to be, giving him a very nice view.

  Was the danger turning her on or something? She definitely seemed like the kind of girl who would be turned on by a thing like that.

  Whatever the case, the sight of her was turning him on.

  She glanced back, eyes going to his crotch, then continued gathering.

  “Slowpoke,” she said a minute later as he struggled to pull a ridiculously entangled vine down from a tree.

  She slid in front of him, reaching up and working to untie it, her butt brushing against his crotch.

  He started to move away—his erection was becoming too obvious—but she stopped him. “Hold that end there.”

  He did, which forced their bodies together and there was no way she didn’t feel his erection poking her.

  As she stood on tiptoe and unwound the vine, her butt moved against him.

  Was that on purpose?

  He didn’t know anymore. He’d thought she’d been flirting with him earlier, when all she had been doing was trying to get him to ask Eliza to use her upgrade.

  Perhaps now she was simply in a hurry? If so, she was probably wondering why he had an erection.

  They finished soon after without further incident—stimulating, mysterious, or otherwise—and returned to camp with a full basket.

  They hadn’t been gone very long, but Eliza had managed to construct another basket in their absence, as well as put the finishing touches on a set of armor.

  “Good job,” he congratulated the gorgeous redhead.

  She gave him a big smile.

  He looked a
t Mirabelle, who was working on making another quiver. “Ready to get back to some real work?”

  They both groaned.

  Soon all four of them got to work converting the plants into cordage, and then the cordage into netting for the front gate.

  It was hard, tedious work, but it wasn’t as though they could outsource it.

  53

  They finally finished the net for the front a little before the first sunset, and after getting it up Mirabelle suggested they take a break to go wash up and relax in the stream.

  “Rufus is getting anxious up here,” Eliza agreed. “I’m sure he’d enjoy running around down there.”

  This seemed like a good idea to Cal, and it didn’t hurt that he’d get to watch three beautiful naked women washing themselves. His mind was already conjuring up images of wet, glistening bodies, bare breasts and butts.

  It was starting to get him hard.

  He had seen them naked a lot of course, but that was the kind of thing you didn’t ever get tired of.

  At the stream, they all stripped right away, more comfortable naked around one another now. Even Mirabelle didn’t bother covering herself.

  Cal was turned on by this, as well as by the sight of all their naked flesh, but didn’t bother to cover his growing erection—not doing so somehow getting him even more aroused.

  They all walked into the stream and settled down into it with a collective sigh of relief, the water a glorious reprieve from the hot, humid air.

  Rufus wasn’t bothered by the heat, and ran around the area, darting back and forth, playing with a stick he found, seeming quite amused with himself.

  “What?” Mirabelle asked when she saw Eliza staring at her.

  Eliza shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “No, you’re staring at me. What is it?” Mirabelle looked down at herself. “Do I have something on me?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Is it a bug?” Mirabelle asked, panic seeping into her voice.

  Eliza chuckled. “No, I meant your breasts.”

  Mirabelle looked down at these, lifting them up. “I have a bug on my boobs?”

  Eliza snorted. “I was admiring your boobs. They’re nice.”