by Marlin Grail
With that being said, this has to signify some presence of a non-guilty conscious. Hannibal’s dignified himself on holding his deal with Gary. In a sense, honesty.
I have to believe Gary would’ve seen that in Hannibal. I have to entrust Gary knew it, otherwise he wouldn’t have left us, left me, around him.
My hands drift to my jean’s pockets. I cram them in the thin gap made from sitting. All of us in the transport remain quiet, as the pilots inaudibly talk to one another, before one shares more information to all of us.
After being told by these supposed “deserting” officers that they’re excited about the migrating, obviously not happy to hear such a tragedy about the base’s downfall, they still insist to the pilots to tell Hannibal to migrate towards them.
Hannibal looks down at his invisible chest board, likely mentally talking to himself about all the possible outcomes with each choice available.
Ashton, with his injured leg—still fully extended to the center of the transport’s floor—navigates it to be in Hannibal’s peripheral vision. This means he’s disapproving of Hannibal cutting us off the playing field anymore.
“Stop acting like the four of us don’t have a vote,” Ashton frets, with his hands in motions to help act out his worry. “Look, as much as I would say ‘the smaller in numbers, the better’, we are just floating around in the sky with that mentality. I’d figure that’s what we’re doing, until we’d have no choice but to land.”
Will nods every step of the way with what Ashton is dilly-dallying about on saying.
As impatient as I became just fighting my jeans’ pockets to let my hands in them, I too show the same impatience when I help get Ashton’s point perfectly straight. “We should head to their location.”
Hannibal’s shoulders rise up to his neck in uncertainty and anxiety. “Is that safe, though?”
Janice shows frustration with her own hands in the air, as much as she rarely shows this sort of opposition to people.
The four of us wouldn’t be the group we are if we didn’t expose our truths to each other. And to others.
“No where’s safe, Hannibal,” Janice snaps with annoyance. “I mean, it’s okay to wonder what’s safe, and what isn’t. But, learn this now. The people you remember, the people you could rely on not taking your life, that’s the most ‘safe’ you’re ever getting in this world. We’re safe, and I’m willing to bet those that left yesterday are too.”
There’s not much on Will’s end, other than a straight forward, “You can’t lie to us that we survived in that hangar because of the numbers on our side.”
Funny. Not in a “ha ha” way, but in the way that speaks volumes. The past month, we were in an organization, but it was always the five of us against it. The hangar was a prime example we can be large and all successful, and won’t butt heads, like we did with the other groups in C.
“Maybe things can be different now,” I say to Will, with reassurance we understand what he meant.
The immense feeling of being at an altitude so high off the ground reclaims its impact on us. Only because the five of us, including the pilots, are eager for Hannibal’s response. We stay quiet enough to let that realization kick back in.
Hannibal rubs his hands back and forth, as though trying to catch fire with them, and catch the fiery passion with having direction.
He makes the decision.
“Ask them where their coordinates are.” His voice is confident again. “We’re going to rally up.”
Men. They always can get back up when knocked down. Gary was always beaten to the ground, but he found a way to make amends and move on. He must’ve seen it in me, too. Otherwise…he wouldn’t have left me.
The transport window to my left is all I need to be patient for our trip. We’re on our way to wherever those helicopters are. I need time to just sit here, look at the purposeful haze enshrining itself, its dirtiness, to the glass.
I must get past this aching. I’ll believe Gary’s out there, somewhere. But, until that time, when we can reunite as silly fools, with child spirits in a screwed up adult life, I’ll have to live that adult role until that play time can be found.
I’ll have to work like an adult.
Work to get past this grief…
Chapter XLVI
(Gary)
“If he so dares to be lying to me,” I repeat on an endless loop, running on animalistic exhaustion.
That’s under the least amount of physical and mental drive I have. Without a vehicle, without an appropriate means to walk, besides this tree’s ligament I’d torn off as support to walk with, the journey couldn’t be any more than total survivalist mode.
The phantom doesn’t lie. It has no means to, and it has no trouble sharing others’ thoughts. If Ominous truly is defecting from C.F.O.G., and it’s the only beat of my people’s possible location, then it’s what I’ll have to work with. I’m not going to Cheyenne, but I’m not going to let my people die.
That haze and I are attached at the hip. Mainly because I limp at a troubled rate, one which allows it to not be that far from me. I can’t shoo it off. I know this because I tried. I’ve concluded they are not commanded to disappear, as can the undead.
It better explains how those hazes Claw showed us, when he first revealed his immunity to me and my group, indicated he wasn’t far off, because they followed him. He probably had to run far from their area to get rid of them when he was done with them.
All I can think, whenever my mind is treading close to the visual image of Claw the liar, the lucky bastard, the absolute abuser of the human race, and the smudge of darkness incarnate, is one thing. How does Ominous fair in comparison?
You murdered Josh. You murdered those people at the lumber mill. Even the RPG carrier. Maybe he was like all the malicious people in that infrastructure, or maybe he wasn’t. We weren’t to attack the way we did, but you made it happen. You contributed to C.F.O.G. by destroying those peaceful people’s Fort, and you again assisted by dragging me out here.
The bubbling of seeing red in my head frightens me. Or it would if it weren’t C.F.O.G. I was envisioning all dying by my hands. The order of first to last dead trifles with my parched tongue.
“First, you, Feral. Second, you, Ominous. Third, you, Grim. And, lastly, you, Claw.”
On the inside, I scare myself a little with what I’m saying. However, it’s just me, this haze trailing behind, and the repetitively, sadistic laughter I imagine all of them have had to my situation.
Take from Ominous what he’ll share, then off with his life, as he did so many others. That’s what you’ll do, Gary.
Every step becomes a walkathon. The refusal to fall to the ground by gravity is a pull-up. The mushy, yet rocky, terrain of dirt, grass, and rooted trees adds their own unique layers of discomfort and aching pain to my legs, but none of it aches worse than the absence of my people.
Of Lissie.
Not a full day has passed, and already I’ve pained over the feeling of it being an eternity without her scent, without her warm skin, and without those eyes to remind me I’m not the only one in pain. But I’m one to help ease it off.
“Keep going!” is what you tell me, Lissie. “Don’t stop!” is what you’re screaming to a shriek. I can’t, and won’t, stop.
Earlier, I scratched my left hand while I barbarically ripped off the strong and durable tree branch I have as a walking support. I feel the wound leak the identifiable fluid inside everyone.
Everyone human.
But, I haven’t looked back at it. Not once. Even when this new upward slope puts it closer to my peripheral vision. Instead, I just let the hand rest against my tail bone. I won’t look at it again.
Not when I originally noticed a blend of red.
Not when I saw a tiny tint of green undercoating.
Don’t be afraid of what you’re becoming. You have a goal to reach. Ominous said once I headed North from where I was dropped off, I needed to continue until I met a high a
nd wide uphill slope. Like this one.
Walking up to it is what’s next for me. The hill is angled so acutely that the balls of my feet make contact first before the heel could ever. Normal and healthy Gary could do this. However, the Gary I currently am is weakened. I’m losing an inner-sanctuary, becoming impervious to the outside world.
Mentally, I’m unable to inject motivational juice from that inner-sanctuary, because all I can feel is the fist-flailing pain of my wounded thigh. And the continuous reminder of who gave me it.
That should be enough, but I don’t want to forget. To forget what it’s like being optimistic, caring, and a delight to be around. I don’t want Lissie to be getting a completely different Gary. Pain needs more than a light, it needs shades of blackness to embolden me.
I’ve barely made it up to the first boulder that’s stuck-out on this side of the hill. These boulders have probably never gotten a hug from anyone, but that’s exactly what I do next. I flail and grasp one with my arms just as I began losing my stance.
How lonely I must feel to appreciate something such as granite touching my skin. I close my eyes to regain a breath. Only for a moment though. I’ve made some distance from that haze by climbing up something it cannot hover up against. Yet, I know, even with my eyes closed, that it idly floats below.
It feels like I’m a squirrel climbing up a tree to get away from a fox. It’s unnerving just to know its silence is the creepiest noise to not hear below, while knowing it is at the same time.
It won’t kill me if I end up back in it, but it’s my mind it can devour. I just want it away. My sanity depends on it.
I must continue rising upward. I press entirely against the boulder, seeing as it has enough of a platform to support me standing. Scraping my elbows against the rough surface, and my shirt flimsy to the point it exposes my stomach to the granite’s surface, I find myself puffing away due to this being a real push-up.
Each inch upward from there on is a triumphant victory in its own right, a measurement I’d reward somebody else with this condition that I’m in. The support of my branch really starts saving the day, as I consistently need to take breaks in a kneeling position. The tip at its bottom is capable of sticking into the soft ground to let me do so.
Up next is another boulder sticking out for me to step on entirely. More chalky-white skin forms on my elbows and body as I fight to get on it. Then further up is another one. Smaller, but several rocks are close together to make their own stepping stones there.
As I elevate, involuntary gasps for air from the physical strain leach out of me. Still I put pressure on myself not to show tiredness. That’s okay now to breathe out in wheezes as long as I keep moving. Minutes pass. I shake my head in bafflement for the sweat I feel on my back.
The hilltop is but one more large boulder away.
I take one lunging step with my healthy leg, less conscientious in being careful. Without warning, there’s purposeful stomps on the spongy grass above.
Chapter XLVII
Don’t look. They want to stay silent, and they’re awful at it. Surprise them when you pretend you don’t hear.
Several more stomps resonate on the grass to the hilltop, then a voice blends together.
“Climb as you must,” this masculine voice challenges.
I remain hunched over, staring at the boulder, the colors of the gray are all I want to see. This world has done a brutal job in teaching me I can’t always get what I wish. For example, I currently wish they’re not hostile, but he crushes that hope with what I see as the extension of himself.
It’s a long barrel. The cylinder tunnel is what a sniper rifle would have. I know who this is even though I’ve never seen him. I didn’t see him, but I did see his work, way back when my group and I first saw Claw. This man was the one who fired a warning shot at Ashton.
He was so close to us then, back when I had no idea of what was to come, and who C.F.O.G. were.
I can’t always get what I wish, but neither will he.
You won’t scare me away. This is NOT going to end with me dead.
Both of my hands curl inwards to my wrists. The hand holding the long tree limb will support my leap forward, up and over this last stepping stone, and into a fight.
This brawl fits perfectly in with my to-kill-list. Number one’s barrel mocks me. He mocks the fact he doesn’t need to have it aimed in my direction.
You want a fight?
“Feral!” I throw my whole body to bear hugging his.
My tree limb support is not just a weapon to persevere over terrain anymore, but a preserver in battling Feral.
His face mesh covers his mouth, fabric with a skull mouth tailored into it. I work this weapon to impale that invisible face of his with its bottom end, sharp enough to stab into soft soil, so surely able to tear through skin when it’s desired.
The mesh was visible to my front, then, in a flash, suddenly that skeletal smile is to my right. Feral’s sniper body deflects the downward thrust of my weapon. He’s provoking the bull, dodging and unharmed by its horns. My horns, my weapon, involuntarily runs me down to the ground to stop its motion.
I’m unable to turn speedily for whatever Feral has to counteract my attack.
“Sloppy,” his low-key voice criticizes.
Hatefully, he’s right.
Feral’s right leg bends to a stance that leans most of his body’s weight on it. Then, he springs a quick right jab to my face, forcing my line of sight to twist opposite of where I spotted him doing this. His flesh pounds a slap as he does it with a chuckle.
He’s skilled. He wants to show he’s skilled, which is why he didn’t just shoot me then and there by the boulder.
As I predict and undermine what he’ll do next, there’s an upward thrust of his right knee to my hunched over body. He truly pities this two-action fighting style of ours.
Receive an attack, deflect. Receive, deflect.
That fighting style worked for me on people who’ve never sculpted a skillset or technique. But it’s not working with Feral.
I feel him swiftly swat off my hands to his knee with one of his own, then snake under my throat with his other. Simultaneously, he swipes my working leg off of the ground.
He let go of his rifle. It’s the easier method, but he truly doesn’t plan to kill me with it. That’s sick.
With his hand under my throat, the manipulation of my body present in his power, simultaneously works with the leverage he has from sweeping my working leg from under me. My body wants me to fall backward, but he’s not planning to have me fall.
He chuckles some more when he’s arched my back up against his front. “You’re supposed to be her next husband?” he asks with skepticism heavy in his voice.
I gargle on my words because he pinches my neck and throat from properly conveying them. “I go ‘in ‘ill you!”
He scoffs at my efforts. “You’re going to what? If you so think.” He releases my throat, but works with his other to push me forward at lightning speed. “Then be my guest.”
My hands naturally go to touch my neck. They quickly massage and assure all of my senses I’m safe, but only for an instant. I turn around to give a glare. His boredom is evident by the way he carries himself.
But the fight’s far from over.
I begin adding immense weight to my wounded thigh. It feels like jelly, wobbling to keep up, but I remain focused on making eye contact with Feral.
My hands lift to a fighting position.
Chapter XLVIII
He begins making ground towards me, hands not even close to shielding off his front from potential attacks by me.
Go where he would least expect. Mess with him.
He’s closest to the ledge of this hilltop, and he clearly doesn’t seem nervous because of it. It fuels my anger to see he’s unaffected by fake punches to his face or stomach region. Not one flinch occurs.
“That all you have?” he taunts.
Look around his body. What do
es he have on him?
I can’t break eye contact with Feral in order to spot possible weaknesses, for he’ll catch on. I reluctantly have to admit to myself he’s a skillful warrior. Hopefully not as skilled in the mental category though.
He can’t see what my eyes are hiding, but I can see his faded-blue, almost gray, eyes are all telling of his intentions. To mock and watch me try to psyche him out.
We mutually recognize this small patch of land to walk on is little in width. He’s wanted it to be a sparring match, which is why he’s had us circle around our invisible ring again and again.
Not a real strike has happened yet, but he’s already doing damage on me when my wounded leg presses to the ground to sidestep further away from him. If this were duck, duck, goose, he is the goose, not really trying to catch up. But every now and then he does, which forces me to strain my leg further.
He’s already done more to hurt me without lifting another finger.
It gets truly worrisome when his position finally reaches a standstill. I stop as he does, but it leaves me directly by the ledge that leads down this steep hill.
I’ve already climbed it with all the reserve strength in me.
During our standoffish mind game, eyeing each other down to our core, I was finally able to spot a chip in his invisible and seemingly invincible armor. It was hard to make out at first, but I concluded he has a tactical knife in a sheath by his waist line, closer to his left hip.
The one positive with me being weaponless is I have nothing he could steal. Besides my life.
“Enough of this!” He charges, his right shoulder blade being the tip of his form. I just know, if we were both football players, with me in my weakened state, he’d have the crowd shrilling in awe as my body were to go flying from impact.
I don’t need to be a physics expert to know that will happen—if I fail.
A split moment off, and this train will be able to ram me off the ledge, while intelligently being able to stop before it tags along beside me. I focus. My right arm must reach his left hip. It doesn’t have to be a graceful grab, but the reach must exert enough energy.
