The man felt like he had barely any time to blink as this beautiful woman, the first one more like him that he had seen in a long time, began to faint, most likely at the sight of him and his red eyes. He quickly tried to snap out of his adrenaline rush from the fight, closing his red glowing eyes and shaking his head until he felt like they were back to a normal color. Then he quickly reached his hand out an darted for Ashley.
It seemed to last forever to him, but to Ashley if she were conscious it probably would have looked almost instantaneous as this man shook his head and races towards her, catching her just before she hit the ground.
"Always wanted to do that." The man thought upon catching this damsel in distress.
He gently put her into one of the chairs and placed a blanket on her, as she was shivering still with fear. She seemed to relax at his touch (which felt incredibly good to him as well to touch another "human being") as she drifted off into a proper state of sleep.
She certainly was cute, the way her lips held partially yet ever so slightly open as she breathed during her rest...
This stranger snapped out of it and began to recollect his thoughts. Soon enough, all too soon, she would be awake, and if she remembered him,... and his face... she was sure she would have a ton of questions. He would have to be careful as not to startle her. Of course, he wanted to be honest as well.
Even he had trouble believing his own story...what he could remember of it anyway.
He had been here for six months now. He was most certainly more than welcome there but even now still felt like an outsider. He had trouble making real friends and was never able to meet an "interested" women yet. Maybe him meeting someone more white like him and where he came from would be the best thin for him right now...if e ever did decide to wave and pursue the truth about his real origins... As well as how a man like him became "like them" and ended up here in the first place.
But where did he come from? One thing was for certain, while e was like his brothers and sisters of the village, he was so much more... It scared him, and no doubt pit fear into those around him, those who could relate to him and were not quite human anymore either.
So how would this sweet Ashley girl react?
Chapter 2: Deja Vu
Action and Ashley
Sobbing, the screen fades into Ashley in the grey wreckage, hunched over Leon's body.
She placed his gun in his hand before folding his arms over the body she had embraced just moments ago.
"I'll never give up; I promise." she wept as she took the knife she had been given by him and close his open dead eyes.
She had gathered the ammo from the other agents and was now outside in these strafe woods on a foggy morning, kneeling as she hacked away at wood she had gathered with Leon's hatchet from the Camp David.
She fought with the flint and steel as it grew late before finally giving in and using a match to start the fire.
As she curled up there, she was not alone. A figure up on the mountain like jagged hill with a red wide brimmed had and green jacket look down on her. He had bright red eyes and a dark red bandana over his mouth. His jeans were blue denim and e did not seem very old, but was no kid either. He mixed his binoculars and looked down on her, not with lust, but curiosity and concern. She seemed fully capable, but with the woods here as rough as they had been lately, would she be ok? He grabbed his hunting riffle and began to follow heras she set of for more firewood.
Mission 1: Collect Firewood for the night.
Down below, a pile of wood was being made by logs Ashley gathered and carried over. Separately, the man watching here gathered logs and when she was not looking, he dropped them down. Ashely seems partly delirious as she does not notice the extra logs, or when she in counters a coyote and fights it of her the snippet shots from her guardian angel go unnoticed. She is emotional and going through the motions, but is still tough and not about to die on herself. She shook her head, bit wanting to break the promise she had made to Leon.
Ashley still has a pistol from earlier and finds a now and arrow along the trails, apparently left by another. Henry, the young man watching over her has a Russian style gun and scoped bolt-action riffle. In his cave, there is also a shotgun in a metal box that can be accessed during the mission to protect and help Ashely.
Once the firewood is gathered, the screen changes to show it being late at night with the fire going strong, the man closer now but still in the distance.
Poor Ashley is so drained from loosing her father and Leon they she doesn't seem to react to the howls in the night or growling of what seems like normal dogs out there in the woods.
"Action" (Pete) as he is called for the action on a gun is watchful, searching the woods with keen eyes.
Eventually, a snap of the twigs nearby wakes Ashley, as she steps out of her sleeping bag clenching her gun to investigate...
Mission 2: Defeat the Cerebrus infected hounds.
...when four or five, maybe six infected dogs appear. These are different from the parasite coyote Ashley had come close to years ago, and seem about the size of fairly large animal crates seemingly dropped from the sky into the ground from earlier in the woods.
As Ashley cringes and the dogs fly forward, a young man drops down with his gun and blasts a whole into the animal as it falls to the ground, teeth wide open still trying to bite with its muscles twitching aimlessly.
Ashley falls down on her butt, a streak of blood on her chin, as the gun reloads, ejecting the cartridge as on the side a dog comes running in around Action by the plane and along the path towards Ashley as she screams. Still with his gun pointed to the right and his elbow out parallel to his left, he fires another shot, just nipping the dogs nose and forcing it back, going for Action as he ducks and the dog flies forward past him.
Action wields the gun and moves his left hand from left to right, moving the gun into the proper location and meeting up with his right hand as the arms meet and the gun switches places, all the while shooting three times and hitting his marks on the dogs coming in from the distance, holding the gun up to his left cheek as the dogs move in, the crashed plane visa lie from behind him, three more Cerebrus hounds howl and Action turns around briefly, facing forward to shoot another dog coming and blindly fires into the air as two of the three dogs from on top o the plane circle around.
The third dog falls from the sky above him and lands dead, immobile a many number of dogs remain still from shots, just crawling up and standing their barking.
After Ashley joins in and the dogs are killed, Action turns toward her and holds out his hand, she hesitate, and as her arm reaches out for his another dog comes running and he turns away for Ashley towards it. Pulling her up with one hand, he shoots the dog with his left again, clearly able to fire from onehand.
As the dog backs away and roars, a parasitic film emerges from its mouth. As Ashley begins to reach for Action for comfort, Action literally roars back at the dog! Scaring it away with its own parasitic mouth life bursting toward it, Ashley sees this from the back and faints as Action turns around to catch her.
She passes out, unsure and unable to comprehend what she thought she might have seen.
Ashley wakes up the next day shocked from what she believed a dream and pointing her gun eery which way. There are no corpses in sight, either moved away from their empty leafless spots or not existing in the first place. She notices her gun is still fully loaded and her sleeping bag zipped, but the chicken eggs she found and her box of ammo aren't where she remembers putting them.
More alert and awake, she wonders now how Lon she ha been lot here in these woods. Could she really be loosing it like this? How long at this rate would she last? Leon...and dad.
She had to.. Her thoughts were interrupted with more rustles in the woods as she crawled forward to her gun.
Familiar funny fixes an words could be heard r from the grey forest, it seemed.
"It's only my imagination... Only my-
Ahhhhh!"
From the woods came those people...those things from long ago. For years had done nothing to her memory of those terrible things.
How could she... How could anyone forget...
The Ganados!
She quickly took of from her sleeping bag and camping spot running, her shoes still of and back at camp!
They continues to pursue her, as her foot slipped in the mud, she recovered and pressed on, as did he
...above on the mountains the man ran vigorously alongside her, looking on he sweated an panicked, tryin to get in front of them before it was to late for her.
A dog, friendly enough, barked out and ran beside her, leading her off trail as a butterfly landed on a tripwire that set if explosives where Ashley would have ran!
She jumped into the shallow creek and watched her balance as she pressed on in this ditch. But the dog was barking again. She turned to look but saw him, Action from her dream last night waving his arms towards her...so, it wasn't a dream!
She kept running down the creek as she passed a red skull sigh without noticing. Soon she felt a rumble as the villagers neared.
The rumbling seemed to be comming from behind her as the creek led to a flight of big stairs. She looke up to see against the mountain that something large seemed to be coming towards her, rolling...
A BOLDER!?
She screamed an ear shattering scream that seemed to even get to the villagers on the bridge above, as well as back at their houses as their tension of chores was broken by a familiar sounding scream from long ago.
She sprinted away and the man from before leaped onto the bolder, running against it the opposite way.
He was slowing it down...
A human voice said "duck out of the way" and so she did as he grabbed onto the rope bridge above him. She looked around and briefed a deep sigh of relief, but felt more of a breeze on her from high up like a steady gust. She turned around to see, a trollish being easily eight feet high and as wide a a house!
She gulped. Flickig her big eyes in the settling grey dust from the bolder, she slowl began to move away, as did the troll, El Gigante, following her.
Soon her pace and voice increase and she was wailing as she waved her arms like she was on fire.
Soon the villagers pointed at her over a hillside and she sharply changed directions. Action saw his, swinging down to the ground and swooping forward on a tree vine.
The sight was one to behold as he and the dog saw a wailing blond girl chased by a grey troll walking as a mob of villagers with hachets, siccles and pitchforks in pursuit.
Action held himself up with his hands on his legs, tired as the dog wines.
Ashley continued to run off the beaten trail as the dog ran ahead and barked. She took the different path, away from the concealed spike traps and animal traps that could easily sever her bare feel in their state.
As the dog barks, Ashley waved her arms past it at full speed, the troll steadily followe behing, the mob of vilifies gave further chase, and slowly but finally Action slowly walked past, panting deeply. Looking down at the sight again he saw a shortcut falling down into the dead end valley and he took it.
Ashley was against the stone wall awaiting her doom when Pete "Action" slid down the hill jumping of the trolls head as it swung it's arms down at the ground in front of Ashley and as the villagers surrounded her Action landed off to the side and threw his Sickle out in front of Ashley to block the wooden plank thrown at her from a particularly grumpy viliger win yellow eyes. As they all got in close to er with this weapons even te troll with a giant Sickle in a sheathe on its' back. Action stepped in front of Ashley yelling in Spanish and waiving his arms.
After a long dramatic music pause showing up close views of Ashley, Action, the villagers, the trolls, and even the sig's face, the mob crowd suddenly...
"Awwwwww" they went in a loud sigh and began to drop their weapons and slowly walk away. Ashley looked in rubbing her morning hair rad puzzle while Action put his hand to his sides in triumph.
As they left, a jointer gentleman with frizzy brownish red hair and a blue buttoned shirt kicked a small metal bucket along the way. While the pail was punished, an older woman in a ninety with warts kicked a football forward.
Finally, the grumpy man with yellow eyes and a brown sweater vest saw one of the chickens and viciously kicked it out of the way, just as a big grey foot from the El Gigante crushed him, moaning on his way back to El Pueblo.
Ashley just stood there puzzled for a while at Action. This man was like them, but he seemed to really care and saved her life a few times. She remembered long ago when she vowed thy she would never turn into on of "them", thinking them all mindless slaves to the terrorist, but just maybe, things were a little different now. She could trust him...
...with he life? He was kind of cute for a monster, his red hair...
...no; he wasn't a monster, and she felt really bad for thinking that just now and acting the way she did last night and today simply because he was different. Different...
"Uh, hi...thank you. You saves my life.
Again" he seemed to smile, closing his eyes happily at hearing this. Wait...
"Can you, understand me!?"
He nodded, confidently.
"Wow, I, do you often talk to people like me?" He shook his head.
"I guess I could use your help, but..."
She looked away shyly remembering all she had been through four years ago, and now with this cutie helping her.
"I'm sorry; I just... Well...Promise you won't eat me?"
He sadly shocked stepped forwar as she stepped back, but then she heard growling. It came from...
...his stomache. He seemed to blush, looking down at his tummy...
Ashley felt something she hadn't felt in a while now... joy.
She felt sorry but she couldn't help it after all of this and so she busted out laughing. Tears were in her eyes and she wrapped up herself in her arms and held her face and gut shaking her head, as she couldn't stop...
Action stop there a little puzzled. She looked really cute laughing, but he couldn't tell if it was at him or...
"I'm sorry, haha, I'm real sorry, I couldn't, hehe, I didn't mean to laugh at you. (sigh of relief) I really needed that laugh though. Thank you!" she smiled. It sent butterflies down his stomach as he looked on at her smiling face.
She held out HER hand and said.
"Hi, my name is Ashley! It's really nice to meet you." her eyes closed in a smile and with joy, Action reached his hand out. "Ac-tion... My names
Pete, but...you can...call me Action."
"Sure Action!" she smiled. "Pete... that's a nice name too; it's sweet.
But I can try to remember Action if you want."
Action smiled. "O-kay"
They smiled at each other as their hands met. Now neither one's world seemed so dark, as light shined down.