2Chapter 10: Catacombs General Store – Survive II
A haunted howl echoed throughout the ruined shop as the Terror Knight mouse clutched his ears in pain, his sword forgotten on the stone ground. Blood seeped through the rodent's paws, an obvious sign that his ear drums had been painfully ruptured. The Plankrun girl had somehow crafted a weapon right before his very eyes and used it against him.
There she stood, a Hunter's Horn in her firm grasp. However, this horn was different, characterised by the jet black half-stone right in the centre of the instrument. The metal there twisted all around the stone, resulting in an empty space where the stone itself levitated. How this horn is going to produce sound still remains to be seen, but the fact remained that it had indeed done that and blasted his eardrums off in the process.
How? Xylak mentally lamented. A weapon from nowhere?
His inward cry went unanswered. The next moment, the bell of the living Horn flattened into a fine sharp edge and Catherine Plankrun swung it down.
Blood spurted onto the girl's face.
Her dazed eyes looked on as the Terror Knight's body split into two and began their slow descent to the floor, joining the rest of the cold dead that littered the shop.
"I... I..."
Then, she collapsed onto her knees. "I..."
The words of apology just could not come out. She had just brutally decapitated a living thing in cold blood. Sure, she had killed dozens of mice in the past, but this time it was a living animal close to her size that could talk and even show its emotions. Should she feel ashamed? Should she instead feel righteous in this avenging of the deaths of so many innocents?
The blood felt warm. Its blood felt warm.
It was all the girl could think of.
She could barely notice her bloodstained hand holding the Acro-horn moving on its own and would have stabbed her own self with its lethal blade if a bottle had not came flying and knocked the mouse-hunter out cold.
The next moment that Catherine woke up to, she was lying against the cave wall with two familiar beings by her side. As usual, the Hope mouse was busy bandaging her wounds with his supplies while the Sylph was levitating in front of her, staring intently into her eyes. It was a surprise to see the latter, but Catherine could not care less.
"Sylph...Haiti..." Catherine muttered weakly.
Hush, child. You need to rest. It is okay now.
It was then all that had happened came rushing back to her and the dam of emotions finally broke. Catherine Plankrun abruptly grabbed both mice into a hug and started to break down.
"Squeeakk! SQUUEEAKKK!" Haiti squeaked in protest at the interruption to his unfinished job, but he soon quietened down as the sobbing grew louder and louder, joining its fellow brother in providing whatever little comfort they could offer.
He could not die.
He was too awesome to die.
No. He would survive and find a way out of this.
But the rocks were heavy. His body could not hold on anymore. He had crawled as much as possible through the various cracks in the rock wall and now he was stuck, his retreat cut off and nowhere else to go.
Being buried alive sucks, but he could not just die.
He could not. There was still so much to do.
So much to see.
And Her. He had to go back to Her.
He was dying.
No. He could not die.
He could not...
Crevice woke up suddenly, instantly forcing himself into sitting position. It was then he realised various things. Firstly, he was naked. Secondly, he was on top of a sterile white table with dozens of strange long tubes attached to him. Thirdly, there were a number of people present in this weird chamber, all of them looking at his way.
He screamed.
"What do you mean, I am in Digby?" Crevice Zugzwang asked incredulously, after getting dressed and taken off the multitude of tubes, of course.
A man dressed in the traditional white coat of a scientist stood facing him. His greying hair seemed to indicate some form of authority within the complex.
"Surely you must had remembered what you had done, Mr. Zugzwang. Our scientists here detected a huge disturbance around the Catacombs area not too long ago. Normally, we would not touch the area of the Gnomes but the magnitude of the cave-in warrants an investigation. So we drilled our way there."
He paused to stare at the boy quizzically, as if he was some kind of a test subject.
"And we found you, Mr. Zugzwang, along with dozens of dead mice."
Crevice glared back into the man's beady eyes, not missing the emphasis that was placed on the last sentence. "What are you trying to imply?"
"Nothing, Mr. Zugzwang." The man laughingly waved Crevice off. "Absolutely nothing."
"I, Gregain Surge, am merely intrigued by your destructive ability, if our analysis proves to be correct."
"And your analysis should tell you that not once did I use magic, if that is what you mean." Crevice snapped, before storming away in an attempt to get out of the situation.
This did not stop the scientist from calling out to his retreating back.
"Feel free to wander around in Digby, Mr. Zugzwang. In fact, consider patronising our stores, but please behave. Otherwise we will be forced to... put you down."
Crevice did not give an acknowledgement that he had heard, but nevertheless, the man broke into a wide grin.
"Add him to the blacklist." Gregain remarked off to the darkness after Crevice had disappeared from view.