Hello again, And welcome to Chapter 2 of The Wirless Child.
Now, being honest this chapter was originally going to be twice the length, and cover a lot more ground. But I felt... Uncertain about that. And after asking a few friends, I decided to chop this in half, re-read it, and then nod my head. And it starts just as quickly as the first one does. It just so happens that these chapters are fairly heavy starters.
Also, is it just me, or can be real frustrating at times? The whole bending over backwards to navigate this thing.
Ah well. Oh, and I decided to get rid of the italics in these little notes. I only realised how bad they look after publishing that first chapter... Hehe, oops?
Chapter 2
Mono moved on, his heart still pounding in his chest.
His ears had stopped ringing, but the feeling of dread didn't let go of its hold so easily.
His legs were weak as he leapt to the middle island, and he felt a little off balance. The world shifted, and he caught himself on his hands and knees. His muscles struggled against him, and it felt like his heart would rip itself apart. It took way too much effort to keep himself as he was, as gravity threatened to crush him. He felt tired, and sick. Even his vision was distorted before him, twisting and churning before his eyes. It wasn't right.
Was the shock really doing so much?
He inhaled great gulps of air. It made him lurch, and his stomach protested the action. But he did it regardless.
He wondered what caused it. He'd felt shock before, he had seen stuff that terrified him, and stuff that probably should have. But for some reason, this whole scene had made him deeply, fundamentally unstable.
His fingers scratched on the rock, as he tried to gain additional purchase on the stone that seemed to want to slip away.
He tried to pull forward, and he managed to look up.
Straight into the back of some crackling being.
He threw himself back, surprise giving him energy to move again.
He landed on his backside, feet kicking against the ground as he sought distance from the thing that was in front of him.
How had he not seen it? It was standing there just on the platform, staring straight down into a patch of the trapped leathes. It was so incredibly obvious, so blatant that it could not have been missed. Had it simply appeared there as he jumped to the platform? He had been acting slightly panicked by the snapping traps, so it would have made sense… But no, he had been looking straight at it. It only appeared after that migraine, and extremely suddenly at that. It kept in place, staring into that pit. Maybe it was a warning, or some kind of sign?
It fizzled out as he reached the edge, fading away with a crackle of static and slight scratch of distorted sound.
He sat there, staring at where it had been, not even noticing that feeling of nausea that had once been so overpowering. It had literally vanished from the air, with nothing but a fizzle. It was like it had never been there before.
He watched for a short time, even as something inside him pressed him to push onwards. It left him with an incredible, consuming urge, and he almost felt sick from the feeling. It nagged him to approach it, to look at it.
Eventually, he stood. His balance regained and that sudden pain gone. Why it was so extreme, he couldn't tell. It was a bizarre thing. A deep, rooted pain that pounded his head like a drum. Repeated, belated strikes that sent your nerves on edge. Even after it passed, his body still protested the sound. His fingers waxed from the sensation, and he flexed them to loosen them up.
It was so freakishly wrong, in a world where he had seen someone's head detach itself and charge headlong after some other kid…
He shook his head again. No, I've got to keep going.
He took two steps, and his senses exploded.
Standing at that ledge, a crackled figure stared quietly into the pit.
He wanted to throw up, to crawl up or flee. But he kept moving, and then looked directly at the creature stood before him.
It was more than a crackling monster, or that was what he initially thought. This thing was far from that. No, it had the figure of a child. Just about as tall as he was, with something resembling clothing. But he couldn't truly tell the details. The edges were blurring, and the face itself was a static mess in the rough facsimile of a person. From what he could tell, it was a boy. How, he couldn't truly say. The thing was a mess of sensory information. He could almost taste the static it was producing.
The thing, the glitched monster, was still. Or rather, unmoving. Its crackling and almost twisted existence made it distort in the air slightly. It was bent over, looking down at a patch of leaves that looked almost planted.
It took a moment for him to see the poised, hungry teeth jutting from beneath the cover.
And the thing was staring straight at it.
Mono moved closer, even as his brain protested against it. He felt dragged and pushed away. His hands wanted to push it in, or touch it. Did it feel like anything? Or was it some ghost standing there? Maybe it felt like lightning, something he had always seen but never been near.
But at the same time, his senses were begging him to flee from it. It was crushing down on him, tearing at every nerve in his body. His legs and stomach protested at every step he took closer, and his ears were getting overpowered by the sound of crackling electricity. His teeth wanted him to bite down into something, and he really wanted to. It would relieve some of this incredibly torturous pain in his head.
But regardless, he needed to keep going, and this thing was in the way. He needed past it, and this was the easiest point of crossing.
He moved straight forward, and reached a single hand which screamed its protest. It only took a few steps, and he bit through the pain in his head as he did so. Something like this shouldn't exist, that was evident, but he refused to let it stop him. He didn't know if it could hurt or kill him, and he wouldn't care if it could. He needed to pass it.
His fingers felt something, and then everything went wrong.
A bolt of lightning, incandescent and burning, traveled right back up his fingers. It shot up his arm, leaving burns along his skin. Charred flesh withered away, and he swore his clothes caught flame. It snapped straight through his body, rocketting all the way to his brain and then slammed itself around his thoughts.. His body recoiled, and he stumbled, and fell.
Something forced itself straight to the fore, although he couldn't truly picture it, and he was deafened by the devastating, booming sound of Interference. It was like someone stuck a microphone right next to a speaker, and then wacked the sound up. It left him stunned and unable to stand.
His insides felt wrong and misplaced, something he was not getting used to having happen.
He then felt a sharp pain in his stomach and back, and it was so intense he let out a scream, and he broke out into a sweat. He stomach burned, his legs went numb, and he felt the tears stream from his eyes. He looked down to see-
The feeling receded as it came. With no warning, and less explanation. He raised his hands to his face, dipping under his mask, and wiped his eyes. He found them dry. He looked at them, and turned them before him. He had just been crying, he swore he had cried at the feeling.
And yet they were perfectly dry, as if nothing had happened at all.
It struck him that he was also standing up, and hadn't shifted from the moment before touching that thing on its shoulder. He looked back at his hands, and the burns he swore had just raced across them. He remembered the pain vividly, it was torturous. It was quite literally his skin bursting into flames and pain, and he even smelt the burning skin.
But now there wasn't even a mark.
What?
He stared at the empty air again, and shook his head. The pain had vanished, and he just felt a nagging feeling of confusion. What had happened? Was this some kind of creature toying with him?
He hoped the forest would answer, but only the cold solemn air replied.
Staring for a little while longer, Mono shook away the feeling and looked up.
It was difficult to truly tell, but he swore, against the pitchblack canopy he could see the tell tale sign of light. That shine of a torch or a powerful lamp against the foliage. It lit up the green leaves, and cast shadows against them.
He was close, but evidently not out of harm's way.
He looked at the fetid tree stump, with its mouldy and dying wood evidently dead even in the harsh night. The boards, fashioned into a crude ladder, looked sturdy but even in this darkness he could see how loosely they were held on. Could they actually hold his weight?
He looked around, and found nothing he could do to test this. It was possible he would have to risk it.
Still, if he was going to do it, he'd rather have some leeway with it.
The ladder on that stump was fairly well spaced. It would be a pain to climb up, but he could manage it. He looked over the matter, and briefly thought on where to reach for. Too high, he could slip and fall on the metallic teeth of the bear traps. Too low, and if the wood proved unstable, he would meet the same fate.
Third or Second then, within reach but with plenty of leeway to act if they break.
It only took a short run up, the more effort was in suppressing the nerves. He slipped, and it would be a very short moment of realisation. He held firm, wrapping his tiny hands around the old wooden planks, ignoring the pain he got from the cut on his right hand. The feeling of dread returned for a moment, when with a quick groan and a loud crack, the lowest step was sent hurtling down. He managed to secure himself, even as the on he was holding onto threatened to give way itself, and he got himself stable.
Then he heard that deafening, angry snap of steel.
That same bear trap he saw earlier, the one that made his stomach feel queasy, responded to the weight plank that landed straight between its maw. It snapped the offending woodwork in half with nary and effort, and jumped up as it did.
It didn't hit him, but it came back down with a weighty, heavy crash.
Yeah, that. That's what he was afraid of.
He held himself for a moment, and then kicked his feet against the stump, trying to find purchase on the wood. His bare feet, damp themselves, disagreed with the notion and he kept slipping. It was a frustration, but he was able to do so after several attempts. Wedged against the wood, and with somewhat strenuous effort, Mono slowly pulled himself up. One hand after another, and then he lifted himself to the top of the stump.
It wasn't hollow, and he sat on the edge for a moment, rubbing his injured hand.
It had been far too difficult, those last few minutes. It had been what, ten at most? But it had felt much much longer, and been a hell of an experience. It left his head aching, and his stomach twisted slightly, and he really could do with going to the toilet. Or doing something to ease up the tension in his body. How had that gone from decent to mind-shatteringly weird so quickly? He had a feeling it wasn't meant to be, that it had all been because of that ghostly, glitchy thing. But he couldn't bank on that being the case.
It might be that this part of his journey would be the most difficult one, after all, he felt closer to his side goal, and the signal tower was quite literally just on the opposite side of the river that separated the woodlands from the sprawling city. He was probably a week away from it, and he knew that it was important for some reason.
He felt that pang of anger, but shook it off. Instead he focussed on the detail of the hunter.
The man was a trapper, and he had been hunting deer and such. Earlier in the week, when he first entered the forest, he found what had been spent shells from his shotgun, large red tubes that still smoked if he found them quick enough. He heard their roar of anger, and he saw the remains of some of the things the man had shot. A small patch of ravens, with large holes punched straight through them as the man unloaded both barrels on them. He didn't take birds, not from what he could tell. He just… left them to rot, as if the sport of it was enough.
Or maybe he just didn't like birds.
Still, the man was a hell of a shot, and he could somehow kill them even when he didn't aim directly at them. Everything in a cone would die, punctured by the fearsome roar of his gun.
It gave him an idea.
The hunter was a mean person, and he always had that shotgun on him. If he could get the gun away from him, could it be used on the hunter? If he was shot by his own gun, would it be enough to put him down?
But… He'd have to get the weapon off of him first, and he was not certain he could do that. The man was huge, and he was little.
Did he sleep? Could he maybe kill him in his sleep?
Surely the noise would wake him… But if he was asleep when he shot him, even if he woke up he would hopefully already be dead.
If he got the chance, he would probably need to test that.
Mono got to his feet, and brushed himself down. Thinking was good and all, but he needed to get going. Time was a resource, and that meat needed to be cured soon. And while it seemed like the hunter went out at night, Mono knew he might come back at some point. And he needed to be done in that building and out before he did so.
So with a little hop, he dropped down onto the base at the other side of the gorge, and made his way up. It felt better to be out of the pit than he wanted to admit, and he could feel the nerves subsiding somewhat now he was clear of it. It made sense why, since that one part had probably been one of the worst experiences he had been in in the last… What? Year? Maybe Two? But regardless, it felt good to keep moving forward.
And fortunately, it was to more kind traps, too.
Hanging from trees, littered across the ground, stacked in piles, and in some cases, shattered across stones, were simple cages. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds in the surrounding area, in various states of disrepair or use.
He walked by them, seeing as they all looked like snapping traps that would slam close and trap you inside them, peering inside each one. Small pests, rabbits or skunks and the like, were resting inside them. Dead, rotting away in some cases, all having starved to deaf from the ignorant hunter that had neglected to collect them. It looked like they had wandered in there, probably for the rancid meat he could see and smell in the back of the cage, then had the door trap them. Maybe someone would have come for them, to take them and either kill or discard them, but the hunter had just left them to die.
It was like that for nearly all of them.
It seemed so wasteful, since many of these creatures could have made for a good meal in their prime condition. And yet, instead of collecting them, they were just abandoned. Their bones would potentially make for good tools, or be used as a toy for a dog. Atleast, a dog that wasn't driven mad and looking to rip someone apart.
It'd been a while since he had seen that, all the ones he encountered now were either dead, or rabid beasts.
And Mono wasn't feeling at all envious, or annoyed by the waste. Not at all.
Not like it had been a week or so since he had a proper bunch of meat or something decent to eat. No, he was just.. Concerned!
Yeah, that was it.
He came across another cage, but this one stank far worse than the others did. It made him pull his coat up over his nose, and he turned away from the cage for a few seconds while he worked the rancid stench from it.
It was a combination of sick, poo, and rotting flesh. And it all mixed together to something that really made his stomach want to curl up.
But there was something else to it, and a part of his mind was telling him that it was a massive danger. Something instinctual,and begged him to listen to it. It was warning him of pain, or death, of something that was a risk to him personally.
He'd dealt with that feeling before, and he knew that he should check just to make sure it wasn't something that could attack him when his back was turned.
Creeping slowly, with the parting grass being one of the few signs he was approaching, he pushed his way around to the front of the cage. He tried to sneak glanced through the cracks in the construction, but it was simply too dark to see properly. He could get glimpses of something perched inside, and leaning on the frame of the cage. But like with the TV he couldn't truly tell what it was.
He swallowed his feelings of sickness, and just poked his head around the corner.
Staring straight forward, was a pair of hollow, dead eyes. He couldn't tell the colour, not in the glint of the moon light, but they didn't shimmer or shine like others did. They were shriveled and wasting, dry little marks that sat in the decaying corpse's face.
Mono didn't recoil, since this was something he had seen before.
But it still really worked its way into his stomach.
Sitting in the cage, like a skeleton dressed in desiccated leather, was another kid roughly his own age. Their body was half gone, wasted away and left with so little meat on the bone it made them seem like a mannequin. He couldn't even tell if they were a boy or a girl, since they were so degraded, so skinny and destitute, the body was barely distinguishable from the skeleton it sat upon.
It was surreal, and weird to look at, and mono averted his gaze after realising what had happened.
This child had been captured, stuffed inside, and then left out here to slowly starve to death. Or they had died because they couldn't drink. Either way, they were a living proof to the deadliness of the person he was thinking of killing so easily.
Mono blinked, and slowly backed away, before turning and leaving the desiccated body where it was.
There was nothing he could do, and it wasn't within his power to help them. A part of him tried to argue that it wasn't his job either, but he chose to ignore it in favour of the other reasons.
He instead moved on, walking further up the path and leaving the poor soul where they rested.
At least they were no longer suffering, he told himself.
He paused though, and then turned to look at the cage one more time.
Did the person in there have anything to do with the reason he was coming to the hunter's home? Was he coming here to help them? It would make sense, since he felt a pressing need to keep moving. It was like he was on a limited clock, and that person being why would make sense. Did that mean he didn't need to come here anymore? If that person was dead, and the hunter wasn't searching for him directly, then he could just move on, right?
Sadly, he still had the boar meat, and he really needed the hunters stuff to prepare it for long distance travel. He could cook it, and sear it with some salt. It'd keep it fresh for ages. And while he didn't carry any on him, and while he couldn't be certain the hunter had any, he knew the best bet to find some was that man's home.
And there was a nagging feeling that that person… Didn't matter?
No, not the right word.
It was more that he felt like they weren't the right thing. He knew he was looking for something, and he knew that it was a fairly new goal. That person had been dead for a while, and they sparked no feeling of recollection in his mind.
What he was looking for was probably still around, living or never alive to begin with.
He moved forward, cresting the top of a small incline, where the light was brightest, and he saw the ramshackle house the hunter must have called his home.
It was a fairly intact, if poorly built and rather old looking, log cabin. There were no holes in the structure, at least ones that shouldn't have been there, but the place looked like a mess. He chalked it up to the owner's laziness or lack of care.
The garden was covered in a wide variety of unusual, and deactivated traps. Distinctively, there appeared one that looked like a giant pair of scissors with hooked tips linked to massive springs, hooked up with a wound up rope. He could imagine the effect such a thing would have, as they were sent carving through the limbs or bodies of whatever got in their way. Even calling them scissors was misleading, as the blades were heavy set and viciously wide. Cleavers with very long blades, or two machetes would probably be more accurate.
He made a personal note to avoid that one at any cost.
There were normal traps too, more cages and bear traps. Even a net trap, a larger one that was probably responsible for the child he saw earlier. They were all disarmed though, left haphazardly around the place. Some had been kicked over, probably where the hunter had either tripped over or booted them aside.
Mono wondered just how many traps the man had. Since he knew there were more of them in the forest, and probably more in the house. Hundreds of traps, maybe thousands given how tightly packed he had those vicious bear traps. Boar traps, given what he had found in them so far.
Either way, it was an eyesore, and thinking about it, would probably come in useful if he could take one with him…
Actually, that wasn't too bad of an idea.
He went over to one of the more reasonably sized bear traps, and gave it a cursory pull. The thing, surprisingly, wasn't cripplingly heavy. He pulled it up into his hands, and turned the object in his grasp. It was a fair bit smaller than the one that had disemboweled that boar, and it was probably meant to snap the leg of a deer or something. The teeth weren't as thick, but the space between the plate and the jaws was actually quite roomy.
With a little bit of effort, he lifted it up and brought it over his head. By holding his arms up, and quickly taking off the bag, he was able to fit it over his head and loosely hang it off his shoulder.
It felt lighter that way, and he hooked the thing to the small buckle on his coat. Normally, he'd use it for whatever keys he found, but this time it fit nice and snuggly on one of the springs that held the trap closed. Overall, it was uncomfortable, but it didn't feel overly heavy or impeding.
And if he needed it later, it would come in handy.
Always having some additional tools was a good motto in life. And it reminded him to look for a knife or something in the hunters house. It only had to be small, and sharp enough to cut the throat of a potential meal. He'd need a way to avoid cutting himself on it, but if he could get one, it would prove useful.
He sat down on the edge of the house's decking, and played with the edges of his coat. The building would take time to prowl through, and on top of that trying to figure out what was driving him here. It wouldn't give him much time to rest tonight, but at least he could chalk up the small victories where he got them.
He turned his gaze back to the open window.
The house was next...
As I said, the next chapter is quite literally just the end part of this one... End part? Bloody thing is longer than this is! Anyway, I intend to do a release each wednesday, but I live a busy life, so I can't promise anything.
Well, other than a release on the 14th anyway. I'll try to keep myself a week ahead as well, ensures that I can atleast mitigate any disruption.
Anyway, Hoped you enjoyed this poor sod getting tortured by me, it won't always be that way I promise! See ya next time.
Next Chapter : 14th July