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Chapter 19
Theme: Pendulum-Mutiny
Hard Contact
It was about 3 A.M.; the bearded soldier and the raven-haired FBI agent were sleeping peacefully after having spent several hours poring over the information they'd recently obtained from Ryo, and its potential consequences.
At around 3:10, Captain Price woke with a start. He thought he'd heard something...and he wasn't one to ignore his precisely honed senses.
He slid out of bed, padding along quietly in bare feet. His night vision was particularly sharp, so he noticed the envelope that had been slid under the room door and froze without stepping on it and waking Penber.
"What have we got here...?" He growled quietly.
He opened the small white envelope, noting that there was no stamp, seal, or writing of any sort on the outside; it was just a plain white letter-size envelope.
Inside he found a folded sheet of writing paper...he couldn't turn the light on and risk waking Penber to read this...if Kira was holding the FBI agent hostage, this might be the method in which they were communicating...and if it was...then Kira must be nearby.
The soldier slowly pushed the room door open, and put the envelope in his pants pocket. He shivered slightly from the cool air of the hallway; he was only wearing a lightweight gray t-shirt and his typical camouflage cargo pants.
The tough soldier quickly knocked off the chill he felt, and started looking around. He saw the fire escape door closing, and sprinted off in its direction.
Before he could even get there, a large bony mass slammed into his side, knocking him down and pinning him to the ground.
As soon as he saw what his attacker was, the bearlike soldier's heart jumped into his throat.
It was a tall, but not bulky, monster...unlike anything he'd seen before. Its skin...if that was what it was...looked like leather, and it had a fur-like ring around its neck, almost like a leather jacket with a fur collar had been melted onto its bony body. Its head resembled a grinning human skull, with disturbing red and yellow eyes. It had an earring, and spiky black hair sprouted along the middle of its head, somewhat like a crude Mohawk.
And he was pinned down with this thing breathing in his face with no ability to move...his arms and legs were all held down by its clawed hands and feet.
Captain Price attempted to knock the beast off, forcing its hands off of his arms. He succeeded at freeing his upper body...until the creature pushed his chest back into the ground. He felt like his body was being crushed...as if his soul was being squeezed out of him. He gasped for breath, struggled desperately to pry the claw from his chest. The harder he tried, the harder it pushed.
"Get...off..." He roared, and exerted an enormous force with his entire body, flipping the creature off of him and standing in one fluid movement.
Now he had the advantage; he was standing, and it was on the ground. He went for a stomp at the monster's head; however, it rolled away nimbly, cackling, and he stomped at air. The creature got up dexterously and gracefully, and grabbed his neck more quickly than he could react, lifting him a foot off the ground in its iron grip. He clawed at its talons, which were wrapped tightly around his neck, slowly choking him. After about ten seconds, he fell unconscious, going limp in the beast's grip. It laid his body on the floor carelessly, as if the soldier was a discarded doll, and floated away.
Penber woke up when he heard Captain Price roaring at his attacker. He sat up with a start, and looked around the room for a weapon. His eyes fell on the captain's beloved M1911. He grabbed the handgun from the table, and loaded it with a .45 ACP magazine. His hands were sweating and shaking as he opened the door and aimed the weapon around the corner, moving out when he was sure nobody was there. Both directions were clear.
He knew he'd heard the noise from the right side of the hallway, towards the fire escape, so he moved cautiously in that direction.
The green glow of the exit sign was the only source of illumination in the hallway. As Penber stepped cautiously towards the fire escape door, his foot landed on a body.
He froze in shock, and looked down to find his captain's lifeless form sprawled on the floor, the slow rising and falling of his chest the only clue that he wasn't dead.
"Captain...Captain Price! Wake up!" He hissed at his commanding officer.
The soldier didn't respond in any way.
Penber stuffed the pistol into his belt and lifted the captain from under his arms, dragging him back to the room carefully. He laid the man's body on the bed, and checked him for injuries.
He had bruises on his neck, the center of his chest, and the right side of his torso. Whoever attacked him must've been a very powerful adversary indeed to render this remarkably battle-hardened man unconscious. Apparently, the enemy choked the soldier into unconsciousness, as the fingerlike bruises on his neck indicated.
Who...who could have done this? Penber was terrified. If it had attacked Price...it might come for him...or maybe it was just after the SAS captain...either way, it wasn't good.
The FBI rummaged around the room, looking for anything that could be used as an ice pack. He found a frozen water bottle, and placed it on the captain's bruised chest.
"Price-San...please wake up..." The younger man whispered.
As if on cue, the soldier snorted and his eyes flicked open.
"What...where...where am I...?" He mumbled under his breath.
"Captain Price! You're alright!"
"Of course I am...what was that...thing...that attacked me...and why is there a water bottle on my chest?"
"I didn't see whatever attacked you...and as for the water bottle, it's for your bruises."
The older man sighed, smiling slightly at Penber's consideration.
"Thanks, mate."
"No problem, sir."
Price propped himself up on his arms slowly, groaning.
"You should take it easy, sir...whatever that was, it beat you up pretty bad..."
"No...it's fine. I'll be fine. We...need to contact Ryo...call him for me, will you...tomorrow morning? Ask him...ask him about Shinigami..."
The captain collapsed back onto the bed, exhaling.
"Sir...are you all right?"
"I'm fine...just...in the innermost pocket of my backpack...there's a bottle of oxycodone pills in there...get em for me, mate..."
Penber knew that oxycodone was a potent painkiller, at the same level as morphine...that meant Captain Price was in severe pain; he might even have a broken rib.
"Sir...I think it might be better if you went to the hospital..."
"No...just get me those meds...I'll be fine..."
The
"Listen, Penber...don't worry yourself about me. I'm alright. It's just some bruising; I've seen worse in training."
"Yes, sir..." Penber said reluctantly.
The gruff soldier smiled through his pain.
"You're a great bloke, you know that, Penber?"
"Uh...thanks, sir."
"C'mere. Sit down next to me...no need to be standing there all awkward-like."
Penber sat down compliantly next to the soldier. He watched the methodical, rhythmic rising and falling of the man's chest. Slowly, the soldier's eyes closed, and his breathing slowed a bit.
It was about 4:00 in the morning...Penber needed to sleep...but he also had to watch over the SAS captain, make sure he was alright.
As he pulled the covers over Price's sleeping body, he was reminded of a military funeral...pulling a flag over the corpse as a shroud...
(No...no, I shouldn't think like that...it's stupid...he's fine, just resting, just tired. That's all. Not dead...alive, very much so. I...I'd miss him if he was...no...stop it. Enough pessimism. Get ahold of yourself, Ray Penber.)
He kept looking at the man's chest rise and fall, reassuring himself that he was still alive, until he dozed off himself, slumping onto the carpeted floor.