There's a sound, a rustling of leaves, and even though his super-hearing is gone, Sylar can still hear the whisper of a threat in the footfall behind him. If The Company had dispatched their men to come after him, he knows they would not expect much of a fight: he's powerless, and his wound is weeping through his bandages. There would only be a few of them, he thinks, two or three at the most.
"So you're finally here to catch me. I wondered what took you so long," Sylar says, and he grips the switchblade in his pocket. "We both know those stun guns of yours aren't that accurate, and in this brush, I'm expecting you to miss. When that happens, you won't be able to reload in time--not before I get to you, first."
Sylar flicks open the switchblade, holding it out so that the metal gleams in the sun.
"Let's hope for your sake I'm wrong," Sylar says.
With deliberate slowness, Sylar turns, switchblade in hand, expecting to see a small contingency of Company agents packing tranquilizer darts and handcuffs. Instead, he comes face-to-face with the copper eyes of a cougar stalking behind him.
A COUGAR. It takes his mind a moment to process it. But yeah--it's a cougar. A real, live, jungle-dwelling cougar.
"Oh, shit," Sylar says. The cougar crouches, a low rumble in its throat.
The cougar bursts, an explosion of teeth and muscle in back of him. Sylar runs and lurches to the right, a hard turn that sends the cougar crashing into the bush. Behind him, the cougar slides to a stop and changes direction, and Sylar scrambles, running faster, faster, his stitches popping. He's pure adrenaline now, heartbeat roaring and breathing hard. The terrain dips and he's rocketing downhill, feet pounding and dirt mushrooming around him.
His foot catches a root and he slams into the ground. The cougar roars and explodes on top of him, throwing him back onto the ground. The switchblade goes flying, and Sylar throws his arm in front of his face just as the cougar clamps down, teeth sinking into his forearm instead of his neck. The cougar's jaws begin to lock and Sylar screams, his other arm whacking the ground. Fingers grip the switchblade and Sylar stabs! Stabs! Wildly, again and again, until the animal drops, its jaws releasing its hold on Sylar's arm.
The cat roars, then gurgles, and finally there's nothing but blood dripping on Sylar's face. Sylar drops his blade and collapses, the dead cougar still on top of him. He takes a moment to catch his breath, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. It's hot and he has trouble breathing, the air so thick it's suffocating...
It probably doesn't help that there's a dead cougar on his chest, Sylar thinks, and he moves to push it off.
It doesn't budge.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Sylar says, and he strains to push the dead cougar off and sit upright, but his incision site wrenches open and his abdomen screams in protest. Sylar gasps and falls back down again, the dead cougar straddling him like a woman.
He's taken it for granted how easy things were with his telekinesis. It just isn't fair.
Sylar takes a breath to steady himself. This is gonna hurt, he thinks. He takes another breath and heaves. Pain knifes through him but he manages to shove the cougar off, its body limply rolling onto the ground. He's bleeding again, his incision weeping underneath the bandage. But that's nothing compared to the gouges on his arm, blood spurting out from whatever arteries had been shredded.
Sylar looks at the cougar and glares. "You'd better not have rabies," Sylar says. A fly lands on the cougar's nose.
Sylar grunts and leans heavily against the cougar's dead body. With his good arm he yanks off his belt, looping it around his bicep into a makeshift tourniquet. He pulls the leather tight with his teeth, his good hand fumbling with the clasp.
"If I had my abilities, I wouldn't even need this. I'd just cauterize those vessels with my hand," Sylar says. He tugs on the belt. "I wouldn't even be in this mess. I could dodge bullets before, I definitely could have weathered a goddamn cougar attack."
Sylar stands and cradles his arm. He looks at the cougar, its mouth gaping open. Flies are already nesting in its stab wounds.
"Fucking cougar," Sylar says, and he kicks it hard. The cougar rolls, the force of Sylar's kick dispersing like jello.
"Fucking cougar!" Sylar shouts, and he kicks it again. "It's so fucking hot here, and I could have fixed it! And these birds! They keep fucking chirping and I could fucking block them out before! I hate these bugs! I hate this place! Fucking cougar! Goddamn fucking ASSHOLE cougar!"
He kicks again but his foot accidentally catches in its mouth, colliding into one of its teeth.
"FUCK!" Sylar says, and he yanks his foot out. Now his foot is bleeding, too.
Sylar grits his teeth and clutches his foot. He's still breathing hard, and with each breath comes the sharp pain from his incision site, the pain white-hot and knifing through him. His arm throbs and his foot throbs, and Sylar thinks about the half dozen or so miles he still has to walk to get into town.
"Fucking mother nature," Sylar says. "I'm too evolved for this shit."
A mosquito buzzes and lands on Sylar's neck. He slaps it hard, but he misses, slapping himself instead.
He's gonna kill the fucker who put him here.
But first he needs to get to town.