I head back to the canteen.
"Not bad," Cato compliments. "Not too much blood, nice amount of pain. All in all, nice. Good thinking with letting one of them melt their own hand off."
"Thanks?" I reply, not knowing if I should be grateful about the compliment or worried about the fact that I was able to murder all these men somewhat efficiently.
What am I thinking?' I think to myself.
"You alright?" Cato asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just feels weird."
He chuckles. "It'll pass."
Nothing much happens for the rest of the day, until that night. For some reason, I can't get to sleep. It feels as if there is something wrong, terribly wrong, in my head.
'Well, more than usual.' I think to myself. I turn around to catch, with the corner of my eye, a shadow move down the corridor. Since I have nothing better to do, and because no one is ever up at this time, I decide to follow it. Staying a bit behind, just enough so I won't lose it, I follow this person up the stairs to the ground floor. From here, they move up to the highest floor they can and go to the very top corner of the warehouse. Here, through a hole in the wall, they exit onto the roof. I follow them out to get a knife in front of my throat. I look over to see that it's clara, who lowers the knife when she realises it's me.
"Hey," she says.
"Hi," I reply. "What are you doin'?" I ask her.
"Well, I come out here sometimes to clear my head. Mostly at night, so no one finds this place," she answers. "You?"
"Couldn't sleep and I saw you passing."
"So you followed me?" She asks, arms crossed and an annoyed face on her.
"Pretty much,"
"You're weird," She smiles.
"I say this way too much, but, You're only figuring this out now?"
"Pretty much." I chuckle.
"It's nice here," I say after a moment of silence, staring at the stars in the dark blue sky, illuminated by the colony below.
"Yeah. It's peaceful," She replies. I nod in agreement. "Tell anyone about this place and I'll chop your balls off," She threatens and I cross my legs. She laughs a small bit at this. "That is, if you have any."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, smiling slightly.
"Nothing, nothing. Just that I probably have more balls than most of the guys here, including you," she comments.
"You're poking the wrong bear."
"Fine then. If you want to prove that you actually have a pair then show me."
"Alright then, pick something, anything," I challenge.
She looks out to the forest for a moment. "Ya see that tree over there?" she asks, pointing to the one that seems to be the largest of them all.
"Yeah."
"I want to meet you there at noon tomorrow. The first one up is not only the best climber, but is less of a bitch than the other."
"Well than, prepare to lose. Oh and, since I owe ya one, your secret is safe with me." she gives me a thumbs up.
"See ya there. If you don't show or are late, you are disqualified."
I turn to leave when she asks me, "If you could leave. Would you?" I think for a moment.
"I don't know. I have no reason to. Why?"
"Why do you think?"
"Hm. Good point."
"Don't tell anyone about this conversation." I nod.
"I owe ya one, remember." She thanks me and reminds me to be there by noon.
And that's what I did. I got there well before noon and looked for the best course of action to tackle this tree. The branches seem to be going up in a sort of spiral from what I can tell. Soon after that, near noon, Clara arrives.
"How long have you been here?" she asks.
"About three hours," I reply.
"You do realise that we're not supposed to be here for another half an hour right?" I nod. "Okay, since we're both here now, will we just start now?" I agree and we get ready to climb. "On three." "One…" There's a pause that's far longer than three seconds. "THREE!" she suddenly shouts, trying to catch me out. I speed up the tree, quickly taking the lead. I get about a quarter of the way up before I start to slow a bit. Clara wastes no time in catching up, and then taking the lead. I suddenly realise what's happened and start to worry a small bit. Thinking about ways I could slow her down, I notice that there's a lot of pine cones around me. I grab a few and fling them at her.
"Hey!" Is all I hear as she stops, losing her grip slightly. quickly overtake her. Shortly after I reach about halfway, I start to see pine cones fly past me, some of them hitting me.
"That's my trick," I shout down to her without stopping.
"Did you get it copyrighted? I think not," she replies. Even with pine cones being thrown at me for the rest of the way up, I succeed. I meet her in the tree.
"Looks like you're the loser. Lil' bitch," I mock.
"You are such a sore winner," she remarks.
"That's because I don't win much." I say as I make my way down the tree. I get to the bottom and wait for Clara to work her way down.
"You're one helluva climber," she comments.
"I am very good at it aren't I? Runs in the family, I guess."
"How so?"
"Well, my extended family. They are, well were, I don't really talk to them much anymore, really good climbers." She nods in acknowledgement and we head back.