So remember how I said I was gonna release a chapter of my other story before working on this (not that you care), well, kinda lied. It's...mostly done...not that you care. In addition, I have two one shots on various subjects lined up... but whatever. As for everything else...well, I had a hunting and fishing trip in Alaska with some family that lives up there, with no internet...so yeah. The good-ish news is I've been temporarily dismissed from my University due to... well, events out of my control. They'll let me back in come spring... but in the meanwhile they're making me take classes at a community college, which will be much easier than what I have been doing... but I'll have more time to write, at any rate. Well...without further ado, anyone that is so bored that they'll read the beginning author's note...you no longer have any excuse not to get on with reading this...interesting chapter.
I poked and prodded the body of my unfortunate victim: a caterpie that had emerged from underneath a pile of leaves not far from my tarp once the rain had passed. It had been within reach of a well thrown rock, and I had been hungry, so the course of action was rather obvious. My aim had been true, and I had half-crushed the head of the small bug. After about a minute of squirming I pinned it and wrenched its neck in the same fashion I had watched Scar kill the weedle the night before.
Of course, I had no idea how it was that Scar prepared the caterpie that I ate earlier that morning. Removing the head seemed to be a good start, as did removing the tip of its tail. Taking my knife, I cut a long slit along its belly from just below a tube I imagined was the throat and ending at the tip of it's tail. I took both sides of the cut and pulled them apart, opening the bug up in its entirety.
At this point, the dead girl's unnerved curiosity turned into outright disgust, and she contented herself walking around the campsite, poking about some of the things that Scar had built. I myself had been somewhat disgusted by the sight of the caterpie's body, unrolled like a carpet and leaking a viscous fluid like a split pipe. I attempted to distract myself from the fact I was pulling it's guts out- from its throat to its anus- and decided to ask her what she thought of Scar.
She turned to me, face completely serious, and responded, "He's a cyborg. Probably trustworthy, but definitely a cyborg."
After that I was content to devote the entirety of my attention back to the task at hand.
After that, I went about the gross and foul-smelling task of picking and scraping out any part of the caterpie that wasn't the pale-gray flesh that was most likely edible, finishing up by peeling off its skin. I tried to ignore that I was most likely wasting many edible parts due to my ignorance, dropped the finished sheet of meat onto an adequately sized rock and pushed it as far in to the flames as my hand could tolerate.
The crushed head was creepy, and after a moment I was disturbed by the fact it appeared to have two mouths- a circular outer jaw that was lined with many small teeth and an inner mouth that resembled a pair of scissors- with two long teeth protruding from a long muscular tongue that probably served to cut up leaves.
I scraped the mashed up remains of the head into the center of the fire, where it burnt up.
'Out of sight, out of mind'
"Do you hear something? Like a scratching noise, but not?"
I kept my eyes glued firmly to the slab of meat on the stone, but listened carefully for any similar noise "I don't hear anything. What do you mean?"
"It sounds like scratching, right? But really fast, almost like a scraping, maybe digging? I don't know. Maybe like the sound sand makes when you shake it in a container, with every grain sliding past another."
"I don't hear anything like that." A mean-spirited voice whispered an idea into my ear, and I looked up at the girl, hiding the cruel smile on my face behind the fire "Maybe you're hearing yourself rot?"
The girl's expression was first one of confusion, then one of disgust and fury "Wow, gross. Fuck you, really, fuck you. Do you make fun of people in wheelchairs too? Two legged puppies?"
I shrugged, the sadistic voice from before giving me a pat on the back egging me on "It's an honest possibility, who knows what rotting can do to you? Small microorganisms slowly excreting digestive toxins to break down muscle and sinew, maybe a weedle or two line the ones we saw last night burrowing their way through your body, leaving bloody tunnels in their wake as they eat their way out, and you are slowly whittled down to bones and-"
The sadistic voice was shocked into silence when the girl was suddenly right next to me, and I found myself on my back, feeling as through I had been hit by a truck. The girls voice piped up again, sing-song, but seething with rage "Not so smug now, right? Even fuck ups like you can shut their mouths if they're pushed around a bit. Now, are we going to have this discussion again?" I felt something connect hard with my jaw, and briefly saw spots and groaned from my spot on the ground.
I recovered slowly, pulling myself up and cradling my jaw, only to find the dead girl looking off into the distance, face scrunched up in concentration "You should go. I definitely hear something. Something big, I'm going to go check it out, then I'll get back to you."
"I don't hear anything." I asserted "Besides, Scar said these woods are completely empty, how could Scar have missed anything so big that you can hear it."
At that very moment Scar broke out of the bushes, with a duffel bag under his arm and panic in his steps. "Something is coming, we should leave, at this very moment." He breezed past me with wide, frenzied steps, stamping out the fire and hastily shoving his cooking pot into his duffel bag.
"Told you."
"What is this?" I tuned out the dead girl's voice, watching as Scar reached into the remains of the fire, peeling the slab of caterpie off of the stone on which I had put it.
I puffed out my chest a bit despite myself "I found a caterpie, and managed to get most of the meat off of it, it's probably not done yet, but we may as well bring it right? Waste not want not."
"You ruined it. Unless it's boiled, the flesh is tough as leather, and nearly inedible." Scar stood up suddenly scanning the horizon before pointing in the distance, through the trees-south and west "This way, we must try to find higher ground- any higher ground. It feels like a flood and a landslide, though I know not from where. I am leaving, follow me if you wish."
I shrugged, pocketed my knife, and followed Scar out of the clearing, leaving his meticulously prepared camp behind us. It was hardly paradise, and I hadn't expected a lasting peace from danger and misfortune. But while I would never say it out-loud, that hadn't stopped me from hoping for one.
We found high ground within the hour; a bluff, short but large and land mass, like an island dropped atop the forest, consisting of a short hill crowned by a bluff perhaps ten feet tall, with a very small forest atop it. The hill was easy enough to surmount; somewhat steep, but less heavily wooded than the forest around it, with none of the short shrubbery that stretched across the ground of the forest proper, threatening to trip the unwary hiker.
The bluff posed more of a problem; eight feet of steep, flat stone stood between us and the edge we sought refuge at. Circling the base of the hill showed much of the same; hard shale, angled almost impossibly perfectly upwards, towering over even Scar's considerable height. A second lap found no simple path foward, but with and accidental graze of my hand I discovered the patently obvious complication that the surface was slick with the remnants of the earlier rainfall, tucked in every crack, crevice, and pore without fail.
"No duh."
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and stopped. I turned to Scar, watching his dark goggles as they fixated on the forest, scanning for the expected danger – and he was right to be wary, and I felt the danger myself, not with some gut feeling, but with a scratching noise in the Earth that I felt in my legs rather than heard. Scar's eyes abandoned the forest and raised his hand from my shoulder, and instead wrapped it around the strap of his duffle as he dropped it from his shoulder. He stepped away from me, crouched and spun- swinging his bag like a pendulum, and with an impressive heave, sent it soaring over the edge of the cliff.
"You will boost me up the cliff face, then I will reach and I will use the bag to pull you to the cliff top, do you understand?"
I nodded absently at the instructions, locked my hands together, and set my back against the wall. Scar promptly walked back several steps, feet heavily pounding the ground in anticipation, then he froze. The reason was clear.
'Danger.'
My heart pounded against my chest, Scar stood completely still, allowing the pattern of dark greens on the clothes we wore to wrap around him, stitching him into the colors of the forest. My clothing was less practical, but had been stained and muddied by these woods, I followed in suit, shrinking into my clothes as much as I could.
Four pounds of my heart, and a snapping of leaves draws my eyes to a tree twenty feet off to the right. Only a small haunch is visible through the trees, bent forward and slowly pushing it's owner forward in a crouch. The leg disappears behind the trees again, the leaves it was rooted in almost undisturbed. I slouch, my shoulders squeezing together in front of me in an attempt to make me small against the cliff, my hands crawled into my sleeves, using the dark leather to blend into the wet stone behind me.
My heat pounded twelve more times, and I did not wait for the creature to appear on the other side of the tree, my neck folding like an accordion, tucking my chin into my collar. Scar tucked his single bandaged hand into his pocket, and curled his unbandaged hand into a fist, allowing his tanned skin- worn like leather, save for random pale splotches of scar tissue- to blend in with a pale brown pattern on his shirt.
By the 25th pound, the creature emerged from the other side of the tree- a rattata. I might have been relieved by the sight of the small scavenger, had I not had it beaten into my head again and again that paranoia was the best policy in these woods. Scar was likewise wary, still as a statue as the rat-pokemon sniffed about the forest floor.
My heart skipped a beat as the rattata raised its nose in the air, taking several curious sniffs. I allowed my eyes to dart about, counting stones about the base of the cliff with which to bash in the rodent's head, even as my hand drifted to my knife. Scar hid his anxiety better, but he was anxious, as was evident by his knuckles going white as they curled further.
Then the rodent's ears twitched, and it scampered off
I exhaled.
It was over.
Muscles I had not realized were tense released at once, nearly yanking my feet out from under me. At the same moment, Scar came back to life, stepping forward, as if nothing had happened, and no sooner had I clasped my hands together had I found them full with Scar's boot, caked in mud, blood, and who-knows what else. I nearly staggered in surprise, but with my back set against the cliff I stood firm, and held Scar's weight, I was however, not strong enough to heft him to the top of the cliff.
My knee bent without my knowledge, and jerked upwards into my hands, thrusting them upwards. I pulled up with the thrust with my back and shoulders as well as I could, and managed to heft Scar up with a grunt. I held his feet at chest level, and felt him fidget, a tiny little twitch that forced a tremor from my shoulders to feet, and told me something was wrong.
"Can you raise me higher? I cannot reach the top."
I grunted, confused, surely, between the two of us he could easily reach the top. My neck was fixed in place, seized by my straining muscles, and I could not look up at Scar to see what his trouble was any more than I could convey the sheer exasperation on my face. "That can't be, are you reaching high enough? Can you raise your arms any higher?"
"I cannot. Is your shoulder well enough for me to stand on?"
Was it? Probably, I certainly didn't feel it. "Yeah."
Scar's free foot planted itself solidly on my good shoulder, then other foot on my bad shoulder, then he jumped.
Or rather, tried to jump. As Scar's legs tried to push him up they pushed me down with a loud grunt of pain- evidently my injured shoulder was not as well off as I though it was- and we both fell to the ground, in a pile of squirming limbs. I managed to roll away from the mess and recover quickly. Scar however, laid there for a moment after, perhaps angry, perhaps shocked. After I found my way to my feet, Scar righted himself, bringing himself into a kneel, and his mouth opened.
"You said you could hold me."
I opened my mouth to respond, either with an excuse or an apology, I hadn't decided yet, but Scar rose his hand, half curled into a fist, and the simple gesture held so much severity that I clamped down my teeth upon my tongue. Scar rose to his feet slowly, and looked to the sky for a moment, finding his words "Change of plans. I will throw you up there, then you will lower my bag down for me. I will use it to find my own way up."
I waited for Scar to set himself against the wall as I had, but to my surprise he instead crossed the distance between the two of us, hastily shoving me towards the wall again. Once we reached there he squatted, grabbed on of my feet in both hands, and then extended himself upwards. I had enough presence of mind at least to jump as he reached the climax of his launch, and I easily gained the height necessary to stretch my hands over the edge of the cliff. I dug my hands into the gravel for grip, and squirmed my legs, swinging and dragging myself up, ignoring the ache in my battered ribs as they scraped against the stone. I managed to swing one leg up, and then managed to roll atop the edge, and then laid there for a moment, catching my breath.
I rolled back onto my stomach, and rose to a kneel, taking in the top of the cliff as I searched for the bag. It could not be more than a hundred meters long, and fifty meters across, but there was room enough for a small woods-perhaps two dozen trees on the far side of the fliff. The parts that were not covered in trees were covered in gravel-mostly consisting of large pieces of rock- and there was little grass wedged between the stone and roots.
"Open my bag, now!"
I scrambled to my feet and looked back over the cliff at Scar, who was frantically rooting through his pockets. Suddenly afraid, I scanned through the trees, looking for any signs of danger.
"There"
Rattata, I couldn't tell how many through the tree limbs. At least six, and unlike the one that had dropped in on us unexpectedly earlier, these ones seemed to know exactly where we were, and were determined to get to us, zipping past the trees straight towards Scar.
"The bag!"
I listened to the voice, focusing on Scar's orders. I scrambled over to the bag and grasped the zipper, giving it a solid pull. The bag split open, and I quickly took stock of it's contents; his axe, numerous bottles of pills, the pot, an assortment of knickknacks, and-
I froze, my spine went rigid, and my right hand shot towards my abdomen, clutching where I had been shot from a memory dragged to the forefront of my mind unbidden, and far too soon.
My body jerked, feeling as if struck by a fastball.
Red dots, blooming on my shirt.
The taste of gravel, as I slumped to the ground, jaw opened wide.
"My bag, NOW!"
The final beats of my heart. A struggle, and then silence.
"Hey!" The girl's voice beseeched me next, though I could not tell whether it was in my head or in my ears. "Snap out of it, Scar needs your help!"
My abdomen trembled, small pieces of metal falling from it, followed by small torrents of blood.
FOR FUCKS SAKE!
I shook myself free, two trains of thought crashing into one another, giving me temporary reprieve from the memories.
'This is a different time. This is a different place. It is not being used against you. This is a different gun.'
And it was, that much was clear. It was long, imposing, and rugged. Everything about it screamed 'fuck with me whenever, I'll be ready,' the barrel was long, a wooden stock and grip complemented the carbon steel that made up the functional parts of the firearm. It was big, clunky, angry looking. This was not a tool, this was a weapon.
And another voice, Scar's scolded me "A tool only becomes a weapon after it is used for a specific purpose. Only a fool would shun all weapons, when men have been making tools into weapons since they learned to curl fists."
The axe was the better choice, anyways. The ratata were small targets, and while not particularly fast, they were always clever in their footwork even before Shattering. With the axe, Scar could at least send sweeping blows that were more likely to land. Besides, the rattata was of comparable length to the weedle, and Scar did not deem fit to use the rifle, probably out of a desire to avoid attention, and save ammunition for something that was truly scary. I gingerly removed the gun and pulled up the axe, hefting it, ready to pass it down.
A wet thump several feet to my right drew my attention to a rattata that had made it up the cliff, and a very different sort of fear gripped my heart, as I wondered if our search for high ground had been an exercise off futility.
Then I took a closer look at the wretched thing; it's left ear was missing, pulled clear off and its skull was mishappen, with a shard of bone breaking its bloodied scalp. It's legs were a tangled mess as well, twisted in awkward directions, and tucked under itself. As I got closer I could see it's eyes, wide with shock and pain, and then fear, then desperation. It clung valiantly to life, digging it's good feet into the ground and rising from the gravel, and for an instant something else sparked in it's eyes; determination, maybe ho-
It blinked, and its head hit the ground, shortly followed by the body that the axe in my hands parted it from. The rodent continued blinking rapidly, it's eyes rapidly opening and slamming shut for almost a minute, and then resting open.
I blinked once, my eyes resting on the axe in my hand in confusion.
'When did I do THAT?'
I dismissed the question as unimportant, and rushed to the edge of the cliff with the axe in hand, and blanched.
'Just how long was I sitting there?'
Below the ledge, Scar was piling up the bodies the broken bodies of rattata into some sort of gruesome staircase. One, two, three, four… nine were already piled up, with at least two more scattered about. Where the many rattata were broken and battered, with crushed skulls, snapped limbs, and ribs poking out of their skin, Scar appeared to be mostly unscathed, except for a torn sleeve that dripped with blood from his unbandaged arm. Scar snatched the axe from me without a word, backed up several paces, then threw himself at the wall, bounding off the pile of bodies and hooking the head of the axe over the ledge. Scar's swing was short-his arms barely rising over his shoulders, but the blade of the axe still dug into the gravel, which Scar used to pull himself back over the edge.
I opened my mouth to offer an apology, but Scar turned away without a word, and hastily walked about the clear part of the cliff, dragging the axe behind him in crooked, zigzags. He completed the shape, scribbling something in the gravel with his finger that looked like a knot where the two ends met. His task complete, he stomped over to his bag, and rummaged inside it, pulling out a bottle of pills, poured out four, and threw them into his mouth. Scar continued to stomp about the ground, not once crossing one of the lines he drew. This continued for several minutes, leaving me watching anxiously, wondering if it was possible for someone to spontaneously combust, and somewhat afraid I would soon find out.
Thankfully, I did not. After several minutes, some of the tension left Scar's posture, and his violent stomps turned into frustrated pacing, and his breathing leveled out from angered pants to annoyed huffs.
Once Scar managed to regain his composure he walked over to me calmly, and stared at me wordlessly.
I opened my mouth, an apology already formed "I'm sorry that I didn-"
THUD
I nursed my head with my hand where Scar had struck me "When I say to do something, do it. If I am fighting, all the more reason."
"I said I'm sorr-"
THUD
I found my other hand nursing my head, and I had to strain my ears to hear the over the blood pounding between them "I am not your father. Do not be sorry. Be better." Scar looked away from me, eyes set off in the distance "Be thankful we both made it to higher ground."
I followed his glance, and saw PURPLE poking out from behind every tree, stretching over the horizon.
"What on Earth…"
"A reminder that winter is coming." Scar offered "And famine is not far behind, would I bet."
I looked back towards Scar, his discipline already forgotten "What do you mean?"
Scar glanced at me briefly, then settled down on the ground with his legs crossed "And driven by frost and hunger, the lowest blanketed the ground they hid amongst. They moved as a great wave consuming everything in their path from mountain to coast, whereupon they learned that the only food left to be eaten was in the bellies that they ran aside. The strongest and cruelest thrived on the flesh of their brethren, and after the winter passed they bred like animals as ratticate, and their progeny raced North, and again and again, until h-" Scar shook his head "I do not typically put stock in such things, but…it is here."
I shook my head, confused by Scar's sudden shift in tone. A quote perhaps? "What do you mean?"
Scar lifted one finger, pointing out at the mass of rodents "Winter is coming. I feel it, you feel it, they feel it. I do not want to be caught in the snow in our current straits, nor do they. They search for food and warmth southward, and they will strip the land bare until they reach the coast, whereupon they will turn on one another. Survival of the fittest who will survive the conflict, and will progress into raticate. The raticate that live will travel back north when the winter concludes, and they will fuck like animals and then die by the time the year is out, and their progeny will repeat this circle of death."
I shook my head, bewildered "How many do you think are out there now? There's so many that-"
"Nothing can stop them from reaching the coast?" Scar asked "Nothing can. The better news is that they are constrained by the mountain pass to the east, and will not bring famine past this stretch of land, at least, not this year. But that is not our concern. Come morning, or perhaps the next day, we will be able to cut through the phenomenon by heading North and East. By then, the horde shall be stretched thin, and we should be able to reach the mountain pass without much violence."
I looked again upon the purple dots that appeared and disappeared within the woods, and shook my head, trying to banish it from my thoughts "Can we make a fire tonight?"
Scar stood up slowly at this "I don't know, I doubt we can find enough dry wood up here to burn for one…but we will see." He seemed to glance in the direction headless corpse of the rattata that landed on the cliff. "How do you think it tastes?"
Well...it's a new take. Give me your thoughts on this "storm" of ratata. Next chapter should be out within two weeks, along with a new story "A ranger's guide to not getting eaten, strangled, or incinerated...etc", which will be taking place about a year after the undampening, and will be a reoprt that covers biological, evolutionary, and behavioral information on the pokemon of Kanto... by evolutionary tree in order of dex number, along with how to kill them, from the perspective of a rather colorful Orrian Army Ranger. If that's your kinda thing, keep an eye out. Alternatively, if you're interested in Fire Emblem, go ahead and take a look at "Fire Emblem, Between Changing Skies", which is a rewrite of Revelations (creative, I know), which is supposed to be a wee bit more true to historical campaigns, and a reimmagining of each character and conflict. In addition, within two weeks I'll try to release a Legend of Zelda one shot, set in Ocarina of time...I've never tried to write something quite like it, so it'll likely be sloppy, but keep an eye out if you're interested.
At any rate, I've talked your ears off long enough. Reviews would be appreciated, yes, I am talking to you, Mr. "It's an okay story but I don't really know what to say/ I'm to lazy" (I happen to be one such person...but I'm trying to get better). I'm trying to start getting into world building, which is what I REALLY enjoy and am competent at... so your honest opinion, no matter how meager, is appreciated, as really, it's the only input I have, as I don't really have any beta readers or anything...might want to check that out...
Regardless, hope you enjoyed, if you didn't rant angrily in the reviews why you didn't, and I hope wherever have a nice day- well, that sounds lame. How about... keep at it? Do your best? Uh... Keep on doing your best at having a nice day!
