The Waiver
We each drew a straw. I opened my palm and held up my long straw between two fingers, when-
TSSSSSS
With a wisp of smoke, the grass burned through the middle, the top half falling to the ground below.
I stared at the remaining straw stupidly.
"Well, looks like yours is the short straw now, J-Ow!" With a cry of suprise, Marco clasped his hand to his scalp. When he pulled it away, there was residual blood clinging to his palm.
I stormed purposefuly to Marco and moved his short, dark hair until I saw the dot of blood. Below me, Marco's nervous voice rose up. "Well? What is it, man?" He asked shakily.
I shook my head. "I dunno. It kinda looks like something bit you."
Suprisingly, he sighed with relief. "Oh thank merciful heavens! I thought it was a bunch of freakin' Helmacons!" Despite the confusing situation, I couldn't help laughing.
"Yeah, Helmacons." I chuckled. "Anything but th-" I felt a hot sting on my arm. "-at."
Slowly, I raised my forearm to my face and inspected the small bloodspot that had appeared there. It was foaming slightly around the edges and I winced in pain as the foam dissipated and fizzled out.
"What the heck was that?" I noticed Tobias staring at something in the distance. Somewhere off in the direction of the ship, which was about fifty yards away, now.
Following his line of sight, I saw what looked like a haze of gray at first. Then I recognized the sound and groaned.
Oh great. Rain.
I hate rain.
"Ow, hey!" Santorelli shouted. Cassie cried out and grabbed her shoulder. I clasped a hand to my head when I felt another bite on the top of my earlobe. We must have stirred up a whole nest of something. Whatever the hell it was, my team was getting chewed up. "Okay, I've had enough of this. Back to the ship for now."
I turned and started to march back when Tobias gripped my arm and pulled me to a stop.
"Jake are you nuts? You're going from the frying pan into the fire!"
It took me a second to process. Finally the thought dawned on me.
There were no bugs. It was the rain. Only a few spatterings had reached us, but I knew it was only seconds before we were encompassed in some sort of ultra-polluted acid rain.
I now had a new reason to hate rainy days.
Without an explanation to the others, I ordered everyone into the nearest hole.
"What? Go in there?" Marco yelped.
"Just GO! Now! Move, move, move!"
Sounds of our scrambling echoed throughout the metal-walled tube. "Man! We finally get out of that sardine can for the first time in three weeks, where does Jake take us? Nope, not the zoo. Our boy brings us to another SARDINE CAN!"
"Would you just shut up and get under the platform?"
"How!"
"Open your eyes! There's a large gap to your right, just slip through."
Marco carefully edged his way over the lip of the gap. I held my breath as his legs, waist, then head disappeared. His fingertips clung to the ledge for a moment, before he let go.
"Heh-umph!" There was a light thud sound as Marco landed.
Santorelli called down to him. "What do you see?"
"Well, it's pitch black over here, but I can see a-... oh, crap."
"Vhat? Vhat is it?" Jeanne asked, obviously worried.
"Um... there's a light at the end of the tunnel."
I sighed, exasperated. "Yes, yes. Very funny, Marco. I get it, light, tunnel. Great." I rubbed the bridge of my nose hoping to earn some relief from the headache I felt approaching.
"Yeah. Itwould be funny, if I were kidding. Thing is, the light's getting closer, big guy."
It was the "big guy" that tipped me off. That nickname was like a jinx, nothing good ever came
after it's utterance.
Echoing through the chamber was a mix of Marco's increasingly labored breathing and the constant
hissing reminder of the acid rain.
Decision time.
"Alright, everyone under the platform. I'd rather put up with aliens than burning flesh, agreed?"
No one replied, only quickly shimmed through the gap one-by-one.
I went through last, scratching my shoulders on the edge of the hole. I had to twist one arm around to my chest, rolling the shoulder inward, to actually fit. I guess sometimes being bigger isn't better.
I didn't have to fall to reach the bottom. I simply stretched out my arms and my toes touched the ground. It never really occured to me just how large I really was. I'd must have grown in the past few years.
I shrugged at the thought and pointed down the corridor away from the light. Silently telling the others to start moving opposite of whomever was approaching at the other end.
If I was going to play good neighbor, I wanted to find out more about these guys first.
About five steps into our new direction, the metal paneling stopped. I felt along the wall to try and keep from running into anyone else, but I knew we wouldn't last for long like this. The tube was now made of what felt like very grainy rock. I marveled at the sort of tools needed to carve out this tunnel and then install tubes to the surface.
"Alright that's it. Everybody stop." I paused to think for a moment.
"Okay, Marco and Tobias, go bat. You guys will travel point and warn us of anything up ahead. Cassie, go owl and use the little bit of light from the other end to tell us if they are getting too close."
The darkness seemed to punctuate the sounds of grinding mallow and shifting flesh. Once the caphony of disgusting morph-music was over, I sucked up a deep breath and tried to peer through the pitch darkness.
(("Jake, I 'see' something already.")) Tobias reported.
"Yeah? What do you got?"
(("Up ahead, to your left. There's a depression in the wall, I think it's a door."))
(("And right above THAT is another tube")) Marco added.
I nodded, barely hearing them. Already my mind was flipping through the various morphs. My body shook with the energy ofno energy. You know that wierd feeling you get, when you're dumb enough to stay up til the wee hours of the morning? How when you finally decide to go to sleep, you just can't? That "no" energy was coursing through my body now, all too familiar.
What if we were caught? Would they refuse to give us aid if they knew we had spied on them? Or this could be a trap. I not only felt the helplessness of not having the upper hand... I didn't even know what the upper hand was.
For a moment, I regreted telling Cassie to morph. While her owl eyes were needed for the mission, I still needed her comfort. I relied on her to keep my mind from circling the same thoughts I watched them spiral towards now.
A desperate situation. Our ship was disabled. The planet's atomosphere was at best unstable. And we had no way to tell our enemies from our potential allies.
"All sorts of opportunities for me to get someone killed." I muttered. I slapped my hand over my mouth, but too late. I had forgotten that bats had amazing hearing.
CASSIE
"Well, what do you think? Is there any way in?"
I gently reached ahead of me until my hand connected with the cold metal of the door.
Menderash shook his head. "Without being able to see, I will need much more time to determine that. However, the main purpose of a 'door' is the allowance of traffic from one closed area to another area closed or otherwise. Therefore, I believe it is safe to assume that yes, there is a way in and out."
Jake grit his teeth.
Menderash smiled with his eyes. "I was attempting to make a human joke on the premise that you asked me if there was a way in, not if knew a specific mode of action that would allow us to enter at the present time-"
"Yes! I get it." Jake barked as he pressed his hands over his eyes. Kind of pointless, since he couldn't see anyways. I was precariously perched on Santorelli's shoulder, with his hand propping me up so I did not have to dig in with my claws.
If I could smile, I would. While I knew this was aggrivating Jake to no end, I could tell the banter was taking his mind off the last battle, as we had come to call it.
I watched as he rubbed his face with his hands and then placed them on his hips, lost in thought.
I stretched my talons. Well... now what? I immediately felt guily for thinking that. Poor Jake was trying to decide how to keep us all alive and the first thing that pops in my head is that?
I knew that something had been wrong with me lately. I had blamed it all on sharp nerves and cabin fever. But no, this was something else. I was snappish, unconsiderate.
What in the he- no. Stop that.
What was wrong with me?
End of Part 13
If you review, please don't yell at me for a short chapter. I have a job, people.
Besides, if I make EVERY chapter perfect, what will I re-write when I'm a veteran author and out
of ideas, hmmm? ((((((which I am doing right now BTW... it's been 3 years and now I'm editing these all and stalling before I write chapter 15 but I don't consider myself a veteran author yet. Although looking back at this story, I find that I was very stupid 3 years ago. It's like looking at a time capsule you made and finding a My Little Pony in there.)))
(((Like: "What the hell?"))))
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