*Insert Disclaimer*
"Speech"
"Thought"
Song lyrics
A deer grazes peacefully on some grass in a vast densely packed forest; it listens closely to its surroundings for any dangers coming from any direction as it grazes.
A sound to its left grabs its attention, it looks as it gets ready to run, and seeing there is nothing there it resumes its grazing. Another sound resonates from the left, it is more cautious when it looks, before it can make another move a large figure drops onto it from a nearby tree crushing it and preventing any movement.
Before the deer could process what just happened, a pair of hands grabs below the snout and grabs the back of its head, then snaps its neck in one fluent motion.
"I can't believe that actually worked." Michael panted as he stood up from the deer, "Figured I'd miss the damned thing and just hit the ground, ha once again video games have taught me something useful."
He rose up from the deer corpse and thought over his next move, after a little deliberation Michael decided to take the body back to his camp for a meal, putting it onto his shoulder and began walking back.
"Really wish I had my sword, but I guess a sharpened branch will suffice for now." He said as he walked
After a few minutes of silence he began to hum and sing to himself
"Deep in the ocean, dead and cast away; Where innocence is burned, in flames; A million mile from home, I'm walk- shit", he trips over something sticking out of the ground, the deer corpse crushes him as he is laid out.
"Hmm, even if you're sure you're safe don't assume you truly are Michael." He mumbled to himself as he began wiggling his way from beneath the body that was on him.
After about 30 seconds of wiggling on the ground Michael freed himself.
"Ok, what the hell", he turned to see what had tripped him, "did I trip…is that a ruby?"
In front of him was a rather large red gem, in fact it looked like a cluster of gems resting there in the forest.
"Wait that doesn't make sense, why would minerals like gems be growing in a forest and shine like that when….eh fuck it; what do I know about geology, I didn't have any reason to study rocks, plus I just air-assassinated a deer."
He gives the cluster a good kick expecting it to hurt his foot, but much to his surprise it broke like it were brittle rock candy; he picks up the pieces and inspects them closely, then puts them into his pockets
"They're worth something to someone." He said as he picked up the deer corpse and resumed his walk
Elsewhere
Amily watched the sun setting in the distance; Flare and Ascad went off to hunt for a meal while Frost and Terra tidied up the area where they would set up camp for the night.
It had been a rather uneventful last few days of their journey, aside from Frost's overdramatic reactions to bugs or some mud on her scales.
The only thing that actually seemed interesting too Amily was every few nights when she woke up she would see Terra was awake as well, and it looked like she was trying to find something with the way she was looking around; she would sometimes hum and sing to herself in the late night.
With nothing to do for any fun, Amily sat and debated with herself as she sat and watched Terra and Frost working; should she go off and explore the surrounding area, or should she stay here in the relative safety of stranger's and remain bored?
In the end her childish curiosity got the better of her, so while Terra and Frost's backs were turned to her; she went off into the woods.
In truth she didn't really expect anything to happen while she looked around; maybe she would see some pretty flowers or something to keep herself entertained; she saw a family of rabbits hopping about, but they quickly retreated to the underground when they noticed her; further on she saw some deer and other wildlife run by, a patch of flowers bloomed in the setting sun light giving them an interesting glow effect.
As is turns out going into the woods was incredibly boring, but none-the-less she ventured onwards in the hopes of finding something to cure her boredom, she also hoped she wouldn't run into something dangerous.
She continued her small trek through the forest even though her gut told her to go back to the others, but she wouldn't deterred by her fears. As she walked it began to get eerily quiet, she couldn't hear the birds or small animals that she heard so loudly just minutes ago; in fact all she could hear was the wind and her own breaths echoing through the trees.
She noticed the sun had set at this point as the moon was shining overhead, she decided it was time to head back to camp with others; but just as she was about to turn back, she noticed something glowing a bright blue from behind a bush further away. She didn't know why, but she just felt drawn to the glow the longer she looked at it.
All other thoughts left her as she began walking towards the glow, it seemed to dim as she got closer but remained bright enough to be seen in the darkness. As she neared the bush she hesitated a little, something could be trying to hurt her and it used this light to draw her in; but she pushed aside her fears and doubts.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, charged headfirst into the bush expecting to hit someone, but all she wound up hitting was a large tree on the other side of the bush.
The impact disoriented her and sent her into a panic for a few seconds, but she regained her wits and focused on her current surroundings; it was almost too dark to see anything further ahead, the trees prevented the moonlight from shining down on where she was, the only thing that served as a light source was the glowing that was to her left. She began having second thoughts about this whole decision; but she brushed those thoughts aside and began walking towards the glow once again, increasing her original pace just so she could see what it was already.
When she reached her destination she was a little disappointed at what she saw: it was just a big glowing rock growing out of the grass, but she walked closer anyway and upon a closer look, it looked more like a big jewel of some sort. She decided to inspect it closely for anything interesting; first she gave it an experimental poke, when nothing happened she rested her claw against it. The gem radiated some sort of power as it glowed its blue glow.
"Maybe I can give this to Terra…" she said to herself, "she has been really nice to me."
She put both her claws on the sides of the blue gem and pulled, but it didn't move; she tried again and again, but it didn't budge to her attempts. She had almost given up hope before an idea came to mind; she took a few steps back and rammed the gem cluster, shattering it into the small pieces.
She tried to pick up the small shards, but they seemed to fade away as she touched them; feeling a little discouraged she looked around for another cluster, and found one further to the left, but this was one was purple, but that didn't stop her from breaking it. The process of breaking and absorbing the gems' energy continued for a few minutes until she saw that there was only one left.
"At this rate I'll never get Terra a gift", she pouted as she approached the cluster, "please don't disappear, please don't disappear PLEASE!" she said as she rammed the last cluster, it scattered and she tried to grab them; but just like the others they faded as she touched them.
She fell in into dejected state as she walked over to the last shard that she could see, and as she approached the shard she noticed it was resting on something.
The shard was resting on some bag that seemed to just be sitting there in the moonlight. She began walking forward to collect the shard and inspect the bag, but stopped when she felt her claw press against something very cold and hard on the ground.
Before Amily could do anything else, a couple of familiar voices called out to her
"Amily! Where are you?!"
"Amily!"
"Amily dear, please tell us where you are."
She called out to them, and just as she did; a small burst of fire lit up the night sky, illuminating the figures approaching by air.
Terra was the first to land, and embrace Amily in a big smothering hug…
"Oh thank the ancestors you're okay! Please don't run off like that again, you had me so worried!" she said while crushing the poor girl in her loving embrace
"Uh Terra, I think you're actually hurting her right now…" Flare spoke up, "doesn't look like she's breathing with the way you're crushing her."
Terra ignored Flare's concerns and continued to smother the poor girl in her dragonly bosom; then after a short struggle, Ascad separated the two before Amily could die of asphyxiation or being crushed.
"Amily, could you please tell us what possessed you to go off into the wilderness like that?" Frost asked before anything else could happen.
"I just- I… I got…" Amily stammered out, not able to create an answer for her actions
"That doesn't matter right now", Ascad butted in, "what matters is that she's safe and sound."
"She probably got bored of watching you two anyway." Flare added, "I would probably have done the same thing if I were stuck with you two."
Terra glared at Flare, but didn't argue with her. She picked up Amily and began flapping her wings, the others followed suit and soon they all took off in the direction of their camp.
As they flew Amily looked back at the area where they took off from and saw that something was watching them leave, she didn't say anything about it to avoid distracting the others.
They all arrived at camp, enjoyed a meal of deer meat; and then got comfortable, Terra held Amily close to her while they went to sleep for the night.
Terra remained awake long after everyone else had fallen asleep, hoping to hear the music once more; but nothing had happened, like many nights before.
Michael- about 27 minutes before they picked up Amily
"Alright, not too far now", Michael said as he trudged through the dark woods, looking at the tracker in his left hand, "two beacons, just like last time."
In his other hand was a very sharp stick; attached to the sharp end of the stick was some burned deer meat. He brought the stick up to his face and took a hesitant bite of the burned meat.
"Please let one of the bags be food." He moped as he walked, resisting the urge to gag while he chewed the meat, "Should've just eaten this damned thing raw, but that probably would've been worse."
He pocketed the tracker and kept walking, all-the-while running many theories through his head about his possible location.
"Pretty sure I'm not in the U.S anymore; the laptop hasn't been able to pick up any internet connections, and I don't hear the usual gun-fire from survivors. Probably in Australia, but I haven't been attacked by the king spiders or god knows what else is on that island…wait there aren't forests in Australia, only one big-ass jungle."
He tripped over a log, hitting his head against a nearby tree; then got back onto his feet, rubbing his forehead
"Hmm, I can't be dead; I shouldn't be able to feel pain if I were, unless of course I am in hell and being lost in the wilderness is my personal hell…but that's stupid."
The last of his theories came to mind as he checked the tracker one more time
"Am I really in a different world? Were Ivan's ramblings about rifts opening in the space-time-continuum actually true?" he pushed those thoughts aside, "that's not important right now. First I need to stay alive and figure out what the hell is going on."
Michael gripped his stomach as he heard it disagreeing with his previous meal.
"Hn, gonna need to dig a hole after I get my stuff."
Putting the tracker into his pocket once more, and grabbing the revolver from its holster, Michael went off to the direction the two beacons were detected
The walk was a relatively quiet one, aside from the sounds of nocturnal creatures, and his internal functions gurgling.
As he neared his destination, a sudden noise rang through the night air
He crouched down in a nearby bush, then stalked towards the sound's origins; revolver ready as a bluff, along with the murder stick ready to stab. The area ahead barely illuminated by the moonlight, he just stared at what he saw, baffled and awestruck, jabbing himself with the stick to see if he was hallucinating.
In front of him was what could best be described as a big-ass lizard, or if you're a fantasy geek; an honest to god dragon, wings and all. Given the size of the dragon before him, it is a child, unless the populace of dragons is small as hell; he can't make out any major colors due to the moon bathing everything in its pale color. He saw it begin to approach the bag, but stopped when he heard a clink of metal. He squinted at the dragon's left foreleg, and saw the light being reflected off of something in the dirt; but before anything else could happen, a blinding light lit up the night sky.
Michael brought his right arm up to cover his eyes as he stumbled back, nearly falling on his ass in the process.
"Doesn't look like she's breathing with the way you're crushing her." He heard a female say
His eyes recovered from the flash blindness, and he nearly let out a shout of surprise. There were more dragons, bigger than the one he saw originally, there was a big tannish one, a bright orange one, a light green one, and one that looked kinda silver; the original one he saw was a shade of crimson.
They conversed amongst themselves; Michael didn't pay attention to what was said, only the voices and who they came from. The silver one spoke first, her voice had a little posh accent; the small spoke next, her voice barely audible; the tan one spoke, his voice rather commanding yet compassionate, the orange one spoke up, her voice rather snarky. There was silence for a couple seconds, then the green one picked up the small one and began flapping its wings, the others did the same and soon they were all airborne, and took off in some direction.
Michael came out from his hiding spot and watched them go, eyes fixated on them; awestruck
"Oh what the fu-, ha mm, well I guess…uh…looks like you were right Ivan…again."
After regaining his composure, he checked where the small dragon had stepped.
"Maria", he said as he picked up the gun, and then dusted it off, "going to give you a proper cleaning later."
He checked the gun's magazine
"Alright", he said as he turned to the bag, "please be food, please be food, please be food. PLEASE!"
He slowly opened the bag, preparing to be disappointed. In the bag were military rations and assorted dry goods, along with tap water and medical supplies.
Michael let out a sigh of relief.
"Looks like I can enjoy a decent meal for a while."
He felt his stomach lurch forward, and gurgle loudly
"Gah, first let's go dig a hole."
After taking care of his business, Michael decided to follow in the direction the dragons flew off towards, because he lost track of where he set up his camp.
"Fuck", he muttered under his breath, "Oh well, at least I thought ahead and brought my stuff with me anyway."
End of chapter 2
This took waaaaay too long
Michael's equipment:
Hades (revolver): 2 bullets
Red-curtain (shotgun): 0 shells
Maria (desert eagle): 4 shots left in current magazine, no extra magazines
Murder stick: Still sharp
Body armor w/ helmet
Ivan's journal
Dom's iPod
The laptop and camera
7 fragmentation grenades
3 semtex grenades
4 flash grenades
2 incendiary grenades
"Universal" charger
Assorted cables
Food: should last another 8 days
Water: until the end of time
Stimpaks: 19 needles
Morphine: 5 needles
Heavy gauze: 18 patches
Alcohol/disinfectants: 2 bottles (small)
Adrenaline shots: 5