To Date a Yautja
By, Sonsasu
Chapter Two
"The Cave"
The next morning
The static blare of my alarm clock startled me into what felt like a miniature heart attack.
Frigid fingers, clumsy and stiff, shot out to the bedside table on my left, searching blindly for the accursed off button, or at least the snooze switch. When they continued without success, I fumbled with then seized the clock's plug and gave it a savage yank.
This effectively shut off the screeching noise, giving me the freedom of scant, torpid seconds for a sleep-depraved brain to function. Struggling to suck in a shallow breath though stuffy nostrils, I wearily lifted an arm and pried one eye open.
Six, mother, fucking, A.M. the make you-go-crossed-eyed-as-a-bat numbers on my digital watch read.
It was time to get up.
Letting the bloodshot eye fall shut again, I untangled from the blankets and rose like a zombie, grunting, groaning, and ultimately slouching as though my back were broken. I dragged reluctant feet to the door, not precisely feeling a requirement to rush beyond my capabilities of current movement…
It took sixty minutes for me to depart the pleasantly warm shower, thirty to dress, and another thirty to shake off the sluggish sensation of waking at dawn.
Coming alive two hours before actually going into work might perhaps sound frivolous, but I was never one to move swiftly under the happening of any less-than-desperate events.
As neither someone who was in no way an epitome for a morning person, nor someone who enjoyed working for six long hours, standing on aching feet in a very busy store, I still had to get up at the ass crack of dawn.
Ordinarily overlooking a cash register and catering to irritating people, I only tolerated my job because the pay was remarkably good. Besides answering random questions of an absurd nature, pointing occasionally lost customers in the correct direction to desired items, selling essentials along with useless junk and trinkets, it was reasonably fair.
During closing time, whoever possessed the late shift would refold clothing, print new shirt decals, put things away, or rest them once again in their original places. Unfortunately, I was often mystified on how my so-called friends got me stuck with said unwanted shift…
Shady Oasis, the close to home store for all your needs; we have a delightful staff who are always willing to help and offer a friendly smile. For your convenience, we are open late on weekdays, including weekends and holidays. We pride ourselves in offering only the highest quality items at lowest prices. We invite you to come to view our selections and judge for yourself. For at Shady Oasis, we guarantee prices below all competitors because customer satisfaction is our number one goal.
Oh, and on a side note, no, I never included myself in that ridiculous statement of servitude with a smile.
Walking down the dimly lit hall either leading to my single bedchamber, the bathroom, or the living room, I passed a window on my left. As I went by it, I brushed a damp lock of hair behind my ear. Despite the humid morning of seventy-six degrees outside, the air conditioner constantly kept it at a rather uncomfortable temperature of sixty, and so, say hello to my tiny, inexpensive, Popsicle Condominium.
I came prepared, however, with a preferred style of clothing.
My fashion consisted of a baggy pair of desert camouflage shorts that hung comfortably on my hips with a belt, and a snug, sleeveless, bright orange shirt. Yes, I liked standing out with my trademark of extremely gaudy and mismatched clothing.
Exiting the hall from there, I went and fetched my things that I had tossed on the small, beat-up blue couch the previous day. What I picked up was my old, ugly green book bag filled to the zipper with needed junk, and my black boots sitting against said piece of butt parking furniture.
Equipping my two accessories, I considered snagging a water bottle from my not-so-pristine kitchen, and then chucked the ideal, choosing rather to head on out to begin my day.
It was on the falling hour of evening I finally escaped to liberation.
Instead of leaving at my normal two PM release, I had put in a few extra hours to cover my under the weather friend Zola's shift.
As the sliding doors hissed shut behind me and the calls of farewell from Mitch and Anna cut off, I inhaled the warm, dense air of a dying summer day. Bliss, an absolute relief, repaired my chilled frame with the remaining hot rays of sunlight.
Upon tilting my head back to remove a few kinks from my neck, I peered skyward, admiring the fat, white puffs of lazily drifting cumulus. A gradual recollection brought on by what I was observing dredged up the unwanted, but distant thought of Predy. His promise of locating me this evening did rattle my sense of ease and make it depart like passing gas.
Thankfully, in that streak of time from morn to dusk, I had erased the brunt of the concern. More like the badgering of an endless stream of customers constantly plaguing me had did it.
No matter, I reflected. It was Friday evening and I was free. Even better, there were unexecuted plans to fulfill. Thus, I gave the headache of Predy a pair of cement boots and kicked it out of my mind.
In a striding gait that my stiff legs wailed over, I crossed the strangely inactive street, basking in the waves of heat rising off the asphalt. Leaving the town's business section and its large, safe, squat brick buildings, for the harsh, rocky ravine shrouded thickly with trees, to some, appeared a peculiar sight.
Dangerous footing with uneven, loose rocks, and steep inclines, made it near impossible to appeal for idle wonderers who did not know where they were going. I on the other hand, had an exact destination in mind.
One where no one, save for an expert mountaineer, could follow.
Glancing for a fleeting moment over my shoulder to the chain of man made structures lining the street, and then to the descending sun behind them, I came close to reconsidering my intended path.
Confidence, however, helped to shrug my worry.
Two years of tracking my shadowy route had instilled a fine memory of where I needed to seek my bearings, even when in the onset of semidarkness enclosing on the outside world. It was also the bloodied knees, scuffed, calloused hands, bruises and brutal cuts I suffered during my toils of climbing that had helped to veil the perception of unfamiliarity on evenings.
Tightening the straps and securing my book bag until I was certain it would not bump me nor sway with movement, I went so far as to ready myself by kneeling, untying, then retying my boots, least they fail me for whatever reason. Yet as I laced the shoestrings together, on some unidentified impulse, I suddenly gazed up and out past the small clearing of gnarled trunks to where the barely visible path started.
Divided at the lower portions of their twisted, bent bodies and rough, skin-stealing bark, down to their protruding roots riving the dry, dirt ground like knobbed arches of serpents, to the first beginning slope, I frowned.
Had I just heard the breathy rattle of clicking?
I shook my head. No, it had to be my nerves. At least that is what I told myself before my fingers and limbs, practiced with time and memory, carried me ahead then downward.
Several rather unforeseen incidents later, where my heart constricted on every narrow evasion of disaster, I had scarcely made it to the bottom cliff level that ended by leading to the calm, but incredibly treacherous river below.
With just enough broken ledge so that the toes of my boots rested on it, I maintained a death grip on a dry, dead vine, one of many that layered the ridges of the vertical crag's surface.
An angel must have been watching, because just as I had reached this point, using the spindly ropes of nature to help steady my way across, the one in my hand had snapped, causing terror to poison my veins in an instant.
Somehow, on a merciful miracle, it had apparently snagged on something, halting my struggling advance to the crumbling fringe of rock I now stood on.
Cheek pressed tightly to the crude, bumpy stone, I shut my eyes to avoid the hail of pebbles bouncing off my head, and fought not to sneeze with the stirred clouds of dirt tickling my nose. Unthinking to the abused the side of my face endured, I forced myself to open an eye and look up.
Nothing, nothing was there holding it in place. Unless the empty grasp of air counted for something.
As I gawked stupidly at the browned corpse arrested in my hands, firm and creaking in protest that hung taut with the burden of my weight, I then sputtered and spit out a pellet that unceremoniously dropped into my mouth. Yum, a person just has to adore the gritty taste of dirt and the trill of pure terror.
Taste testing soil and fear aside, what bothered me was that something was keeping the vine suspended in thin air.
My breath emerged as a shaky exhale. Well, I did not wish to press the flickering character of luck. To each grip I therefore discovered, my pace, from that past occurrence on, was slower and thrice more cautious.
Eventually, with the pace of a snail, I attained the first end of my journey.
A cave mouth, a wide orifice hole concealed in an unraveled blanket of deceased, hanging plant life is what I sought. I slowly snuck a foot lightly onto its curled lip, timid towards the snarled teeth of various stalagmite sizes concealed from my view, and restrained my weary muscles begging for rest as I crept over the areas bathed with slippery moss.
In a few minutes spent carefully slinking deeper, I passed into the throat-like tunnel with its stale breath heavily suspended with a moist chill. Employing delicate maneuvers to keep my balance, I traveled further within.
Unaware that another trailed closely behind…
-Disclaimer-
Sonsasu does not own Predator
A.N
Many thanks to my beta.