Chapter 5
After they had eaten, Graverobber lead the way… wherever. She didn't know where he was heading; then again she hadn't asked. It was dark now, several hours after full dark, actually. Shilo understood that in the dark, in the shadows, Graverobber must have been safer moving around the city. Easier to hide from prying eyes.
Thinking this, Shilo followed quietly, using the time to think. About what, well, there was definitely enough going on to keep her preoccupied for hours, probably days. She didn't even think it had been a full day since the Opera, and already she had, more or less, "apprenticed" herself to the Graverobber that had pulled her from the dank alleyway, and had figured out that she had to struggle with an addiction to the drug that her father had been feeding her.
Shilo's hands balled into fists as she walked. She didn't want to think about her father's faults. Not yet. She was just now realizing that her father had been… more than he had seemed. Not even in his lies: being a Repoman, especially. He had said that he was different; he had been right. He had been drugging her, and she doubted that he had ever intended to "find" her cure. And now her father was dead and she didn't have access to whatever drug her father had been medicating her with. She didn't think he had ever meant for this to happen, and she couldn't be angry with him. No, instead she was sad. Was it pity?
She sighed and forced her hands to ease. She had told herself that she wasn't going to think about this, yet here she was. Thinking about it.
She looked up, and stopped. She didn't see Graverobber where she should have been. She looked around and he was nowhere to be found. A pair of what looked like GENCops walked past her, peering suspiciously. She watched them watch her and then they were past her, to the end of the street, took ad left, and were gone.
Shilo heard a noise come from her right and swung around to face it, her heart clogging her throat with fear. Graverobber stepped out of the dark alley. Of course it was an alley. He would hide from them, Shilo assumed, though she was fairly certain that they could only kill him on sight in a graveyard. She wondered vaguely how often the GENCops accidentally killed a mourner, thinking that they were Graverobbers harvesting Zydrate from those that they were visiting.
"C'mon, Kid," he said, his voice low, as he stepped back into the dim light of the alley.
"Where are we going?" Shilo asked, no longer able to contain her curiosity any longer. Though, it wasn't really going back into the alleys that made her curiosity unbearable.
Graverobber just grinned at her and grabbed her arm to tug her along with him. Shilo didn't exactly trust that look, and it made her wonder even more where exactly he was taking her. She followed after him, her arm still in his clutches, at a trot stumbling occasionally on the uneven ground in front of her as she walked awkwardly at the quickened pace that his gait created.
Shilo assumed that that was the best answer that she would be getting, so she decided to just go with it. She would find out where they were going when they got there.
They wandered at their quick gait through one alleyway and another and another and another. She thought she recognized a few of them. Eventually she would be able to weave her way through these unpleasant alleys just as well as Graverobber could. And eventually she wouldn't find them nearly as unpleasant as they were now.
With the quick pace and awkward gait, Shilo got tired quickly and was soon out of breath.
"Slow… down…" she begged between gasps of breath.
Graverobber stopped and looked at her, "What's wrong, Kid?" he asked, wondering if it was some symptom of her withdrawal.
"Your legs are too long," she grumbled.
Graverobber chuckled, "I'm more than twice your age, Kid."
"Yeah, well, I need to catch my breath," Shilo said bracing her hands on her knees.
Graverobber shook his head, still smirking, "Gotta build up that stamina quick. It could mean the difference between life and death."
Shilo groaned, "Please tell me that I'm going to be able to build up my stamina without risking my neck."
"No better way to do it than with your life on the line," Graverobber said with that famous grin, turning and walking away.
"You're kidding, right?" Shilo said, voice coated with alarm as she rushed to catch up. The feeling in her gut was tight and solid when she didn't get a response.
The next time Graverobber stopped they were standing outside of a cemetery.
"Oh no, oh no, no, no," Shilo said, now having some sneaking suspicions about where they were going and what they were doing.
Graverobber chuckled again "You said would be my apprentice, gotta start somewhere Kid."
Shilo groaned. There were sure to be GENCops in there, ready and willing to kill them both. She was going to get them both killed. She didn't want to get them both killed. She had just escaped Death by Graveyard yesterday. She didn't want to risk that again.
"You aren't going to be screaming, are you?" she asked nervously.
He shook his head, "This cemetery is outdoors, it's easier to get in and out of and the people buried here were generally poorer than those buried in indoor cemeteries. But, they weren't just tossed somewhere, so they weren't dirt poor, and they probably had some sort of family. So there are fewer guards here than would be indoors, but it isn't empty.
"Since there are fewer guards and it's easier to get in and out of, it also means that more of the bodies in here are already harvested," Graverobber told her in a whisper, more or less teaching her a lesson about general… graverobbing.
With that, Graverobber peered through the gaps in the wrought iron fence, probably looking for the nearest guard and where their attention happened to be. After a few moments of silent, cautious searching, he turned back to Shilo. He got close enough that she could feel his breath on her ear.
"You might be small enough to slip through the fencing, if not, you have to climb," he said. And then he was gone, climbing deftly up and over the fence and kneeling on the other side behind a cracked tombstone. He knelt there frozen and alert, once again searching for guards. He knelt there frozen for almost a minute, until Shilo was certain that his muscles would cramp, before he motioned for her to follow.
She placed a tentative hand on each of the bars nearest her. Between those two bars was a large spider web. She may have been fascinated by bugs, but she didn't really like the idea of walking through the web and being covered in spider silk for… however long it would be before she got to bathe again. She glanced to the left and to the right, seeing webs there as well, and very little choice otherwise except going up and over the fence. There was a noise off to the left and the heard Graverobber hiss, "Hide, Kid!"
Shilo backed away from the fence and lurked next to a trash can as if she were digging through it like so many people were forced to do in this city. She watched a guard creep by on the other side of the fence, she started digging through the trash. She grimaced as she felt something slimy and fuzzy in her hand. She pulled it out and found that it was a molding banana peel. She muttered something under her breath about how gross mold was and kept at her rifling until the guard that had almost caught her was out of sight again. After the inconvenient guard was gone, Shilo returned to the fence, this time, she decided that she would rather live and be covered in spider silk than dead and not covered in it, so she stood sideways and sidled her way carefully through the two bars hoping that she didn't get stuck.
As luck would have it, she didn't get stuck, and no guards came round the corner as she was slipping through. As soon as she was on the right side of the fence, Graverobber grabbed her by the arm and tugged her down so that she was also kneeling behind the cracked tombstone. The tombstone wasn't big enough to hide both of them, but Graverobber didn't intend to stay there long enough to be seen crouching behind a mortuary stone.
He grabbed her arm and tugged her along as he ran, still crouched almost double, across a road where they were most likely to be seen. Once across the road, Graverobber lead the way to the wall of a tomb which was hidden from view by the thick brambles of close growing and unkempt trees and bushes.
Graverobber paused once he was sure that they were out of sight of the road and any guards that might be prowling it. He put a finger to his lips, though he didn't think that she was about to say anything.
He knelt them down until they were almost sitting before he leaned in once again, again close enough that Shilo could feel his breath tickling at her ear when he went on with the next part of his lesson.
"We have to go to the place most likely not to have been harvested in a place like this. Most likely it's the places that are most likely to be seen, but we aren't going there tonight. Tonight we're going to go to the middle of the cemetery, I don't care if we get anything, you just need the practice," he intoned.
Shilo nodded and followed Graverobber through the brambles that wanted to become part of her arms until they reached another part of the cemetery. They paused often listening to footsteps, watching for the guards, and being alert of anything else that might mean that someone had seen them or was suspicious that they were there. In the end, they made it to the other side of the graveyard without being shot and Graverobber stood above a grave that was still sealed.
"You never actually dig up a grave, or, I don't. It takes too much time and makes you more likely to be caught. The stone tombs are easiest; all you do is push them open and pull the body out. Make sure there're no guards around and push the tomb open all at once. Just don't let the cover fall, it'll have every guard in this place on your ass in an instant," he said, and stood back to allow Shilo to do what he had told her to do.
She looked around and saw no one, so she leaned over and braced herself against the edge of the tomb and pushed as hard as she could. The giant stone cover was hard to move, but after a moment of it not budging, she got it to slide open with a great effort on her part.
Graverobber stepped forward again, "You don't have to pull the body out of the grave if you don't want to, but it helps you stay closer to the ground so if a guard happens by you aren't as immediately noticeable," he lifted the body out of the grave and dropped it on the ground with a thud.
It was half decomposed and smelled absolutely putrid. Shilo didn't remember the smell having been so bad as this yesterday; she didn't know if this body was older, or newer, or anything, but it smelled bad and she clapped a hand over her nose firmly and tried to breathe through her mouth only. But, once you smell death, it stays, thick and palpable on your tongue and in the back of your throat. Shilo forced down bile, she would have to be able to do this without flinching if she was going to survive.
She forced herself to kneel by the body as Graverobber pulled out his kit of graverobbing necessities, though she had only ever seen him use one of those tools, and pull out the needle that she had seen him use on other bodies before. He handed the device to her and she held it like it was going to sting her as she stared at him like he had lost his mind.
"Don't look at me like that," he told her and gestured to the body as if revealing a long lost treasure, "Just shove it up his nose and pull back on the plunger; you'll know if it worked or not."
Shilo thought several things in those few seconds before she took that last fateful step, most of those things weren't exactly friendly either. But, after a moment or two, really it was two or three moments as Graverobber knelt on the other side of the body keeping watch while she hesitated, Shilo stuck the needle into the corpse's brain as far as she could make it go and pulled on the plunger. It was strange, as if there were some sort of resistance to her pulling on the plunger, but Shilo assumed that that was only because of where the end of the strange needle was resting. To her surprise, the casing of the needle actually started to collect glowing blue liquid. When she realized that she was harvesting an illegal and highly addictive glowing blue substance from a corpse that had been dead she didn't want to know how long, she tried to avoid either hyperventilating or throwing up. She was very proud of herself when she managed not to do either thing.
"Congratulations Kid, you've harvested your first corpse," Graverobber said in a low voice, "Now, one of the last things to mention is that when leaving a graveyard, you never leave the same way you came in. We're going to sneak our way to the nearest exit and leave there."
He had been putting the body back in its grave and replacing the stone slab while he said this. He took the Zydrate gun from Shilo and lead the way to the nearest fence where they could sneak out undetected, ever wary of the guards watchful eye.
[A/N: I'm so glad that I have so many people that like this story so far, I really hope not to disappoint. This chapter is dedicated to everyone that's reviewed, favorited, or put this story on their alerts. To be honest, I actually like this one, unlike the last few, which I thought were pretty sub-par. Apparently I write better while in class because that's where the main plot of this one was written.
Disclaimer: I really hope you realize by now that my name is not Terrance or Darren.... to be either of those people would require me to... well, get a sex change for one thing. Anyway, let's just say that I don't own Repo! The Genetic Opera or any of the characters, lyrics, dialogue, and so on therein. This is why we call it fanfiction, my friends.... though it would be interesting to think of Terrance writing fanfics of something that's his and posting it here. Here's to the off chance that he's lurking around here and reading this [/toasts] because I know if I created something worthy of fanfiction that I'd be reading it.
Don't mind me, it's late as I'm posting this, but I vowed that I would get it posted before I went to bed because you all made me so happy with your reviews and favorites and alerts. Things like that just inspire me to write more for you to keep you happy, because that's why I write, to make people happy. I think I'm going to do something that I've never done before and respond to some of the reviews, feel free to skip this part if you want.... if you got this far in the first place. I really just won't shut up tonight...
MarluxiaLuver14: Yay Kingdom Hearts! [/ahem] I'm really glad that you liked the story so much to favorite it, thanks for being my first review for the story~
: Thanks, I'm glad you like it and I'm glad to know that you think that I'm keeping Graverobber in character, at least up until chapter two. I'm doing my best, and I hope that you enjoy the upcoming chapters.
Butterflies and Roses: I'm glad you liked it. I noticed all of the awkward phrasing when I (finally) went back and reread the chapters at a decent hour (decent being that I had had at least three hours of sleep and been awake for at least two hours before reading the previous chapters) I fixed them on my saved file on Word, not that that helps much here. Maybe once school slows down a bit, since I just started my spring semester a week ago, I'll actually do that. If I'm not writing new chapters in my spare time.... in class. .; And I'll try not to let your obsession down~
Kristy B: Thanks for the review, I'm glad that you like it so far and that you think that I'm keeping your friendly neighborhood Graverobber in character. It's really good to hear, because I get paranoid about some things with him, so hearing it makes me slightly less paranoid every time I hear it... if that made sense.
Grave robber groupie: I'm glad that you're liking it so far. As for the brother/sister relationship, Graverobber can be quite protective of his new ward. I hope that you keep reading.
TimeBomb Tick: I got two reviews from you, in a row, that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I'm really glad that you're liking it so very much and that you're enjoying my portrayal of Graverobber and find it believable, he's a really hard character to write for.
Kristy B (again, because you're awesome): I wanted to address your second review separately because it was so long. Don't worry, I don't think that you're flaming me, merely expressing your opinion. And as for Graverobber's adoration.... well, I put that in there for a reason. It shall come back up eventually [/devious smile] I just like to keep you on pins and needles (Zydrate coated needles, of course) for what might happen~
Future-Little-Mrs.-Teddy-Lupin: Your name is long, you might need a nickname. I'm glad you like the story so far. I realize that the Shilo Addiction plot is getting to be really popular, which is why I'm not really going to make it a focus, but I just don't think that it would be believable that a person wouldn't become addicted to something that they took for their entire life as they knew it, so I couldn't not include it with a clear conscience. I hope that you keep reading~
Now that that's done, I hope you all continue to read and review my humble obsession. Until next time~]