Chapter 10, Bloody River, Purely Nothing
Robin did not return, and Robinflight started to slowly creep down the slimy rocks, his bare feet slipping on the wet algae.
He grabbed the ferns, rooting his hands in. He took another step, but this time slipped hard. Robinflight's hand shot out, grabbing onto the ferns. That was the only thing holding him. The walls of the valley were almost like cliffs, so steep.
He gasped and looked up at his hand. Green, murky water from the fern was seeping between his fingers. He began to slip slowly down.
Robinflight kicked out, digging his toes into the rocky wall. Plant guts and green water were everywhere.
Suddenly his hand slipped. He gave a gasp, whirling around. He was already falling toward the bottom of the valley.
He shouted out, landing in a huge amount of dirty, greenish water. He went under, and shot up to the top. Reeds and bugs tickled his face. He looked up to see that the trees were blocking the stars.
Robinflight took a huge breath, gulping in smelly air. He began to swim foreword, with the slow current. He looked at the water, and with a gasp realized he was swimming in rain runoff as well as sewer sludge. At first he was bugged, but then he got over it and pulled himself onto the slope on one side, his feet in the water, so he could look around.
There was a culvert ahead, with a road going over it. Every time a car went by, water sprayed over the edge of the guardrail.
He decided to crawl into the culvert to avoid being in view of the humans on the road. He did not even try to crawl along the ridge, knowing it was too slippery. Instead he slid back into the river and swam down with the current till the silver tube.
It was long, and Robinflight could almost stand in it. He began to crawl into it. The water was still gushing through it, even faster because the current was narrower. He knelt down in the sludge so he wasn't knocked off his feet.
He searched the bumpy inside of the culvert for anything dangerous. Finding nothing, he crawled foreword to hide better. He noticed dimly that the water was becoming abruptly darker.
Robinflight could hear cars roaring past over him. Whenever one passed, a waterfall of water gushed over both sides of the road, and a few drops got into the culvert.
Robinflight glanced around and gasped. There was another tunnel going off from the wall of the culvert, disappearing into the murky darkness.
He had passed the culvert that was coming off, and now he rested a few feet from it. A tiny trickle of water was coming down from it and going into the main current. Robinflight suddenly realized why the water looked darker over here. The water from the smaller culvert was mostly blood, and it was darkening the main water.
He felt like he had received a minor shock, as he realized that something injured or dead probably was up in the smaller tunnel. Curiosity took over him and he crawled into it. Blood stained his jeans as he crawled on his hands and knees up it.
"Hello?" he called into the darkness. There was no answer.
He continued on. The blood, which had flowing down many different tunnels, was slowly joining together, and Robinflight knew he was nearing the creator of all the blood.
He stopped at a place, where the tunnel broke into five tunnels. Most of the blood was coming from a steep tunnel that was sloping steadily upward.
Robinflight headed into it. A few rats huddled at the edge of the water. Their beady red eyes glared at him as he passed, and they scuttled into tiny, branching off tunnels.
The steel bottom of the tunnel was hard to hold onto it. He was climbing almost vertical, and the current sucked at his limbs, wanting to throw him down.
He gasped and continued up. His claws hooked onto a brake between two sheets of metal used to make the tunnel. He stared into the darkness. The bloody water was no longer gushing down in a river. Now, it was pouring down without a current, just falling from above because the tunnel went straight up.
He stared ahead, shaking his soggy, wet hair from his eyes. With a gasp he continued on, pretty sure that he would find the injured thing ahead.
"Hello?" he called. It echoed for ten seconds before diminishing to silence.
He stuck his claws into the metal, and with a horrid grating noise, it started slipping back down. He snarled and looked around for something to hold. He couldn't fly, the tunnel wouldn't let him open his wings.
He twisted around to look at the wall behind him. It was dotted with screws. Sighing, he wrapped his claw tips around them and slowly started up.
He came to an abrupt bend. He scrambled with relief along the flat surface, glad to be away from the vertical part.
Robinflight stared ahead, into the gloom. He was sure the injured thing would show up soon…
Ahead, he saw light, and scrambled foreword. He gasped as he realized he was underneath the road. A grate was overhead, and
bright white sunlight spilled through, illuminating a patch of the tunnel with light.
It was still a ways away, and Robinflight broke into a half-run. The bloody water was really red now, and with a gasp he realized somebody lay underneath the patch of light. He hurried foreword and stopped. It was a person. They were breathing hard and their eyes were closed.
He gasped. "Selena?" He asked.
Her amber eyes flew open and she stared blankly ahead of her.
There was a bullet hole in the left side of her chest.
Robinflight had found the source of all the blood.