One moment, it stares at me with a panic glimmering in its eyes, the next, its skull caves in between them.
The charge is so focused, it barely splits the skin open enough for brain matter to ooze out.
Risk slides to a stop beside me as I stare down the creature’s corpse.
“Jess was right,” I tell him.
He goes to the creature while I scan the walls for the third. “Whatever it was,” grimacing, he turns the remains over. “It was implanted. It’snotnaturally occurring.”
“I didn’t think it was.” Survival mechanisms in nature simulate death as a means of escape.
Someoneis doing this to them.
ARC
Hefting the carcass onto my bike, I watch the Zone while Shock and Risk drag theirs from the ravine.
We’ll have to make a stop on the way home. Dead cavrinskh only attract more cavrinskh.
“I’m confused,” Shock says as he drops the cavrinskh behind him. “They weren’t trying to make it out of the caldera… what did they want?”
“I don’t know about those two, but this one wanted me to chase him.”
Cavrinskh thoughts are sharp and scratchy. They’re rarely more than one word and that one word is often just spit out of their minds on repeat… Like they were given a basic command and are set to follow it, no matter what.
Risk makes an unhappy noise and lifts his cavrinskh onto the back of my bike too.
“Take mine and get home, now.”If someone wanted all three of us out here…“We’ll get these to the pit and be right behind you.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
And once again, I let the bike go wherever it wants to when I hop off of it and hurry upstairs. If something happens to it, Risk can fix it.
I only get half way.
Kissu sits in front of a closed door, growling.Bad feeling place.
He stamps a paw once, twice, three times.Lock now. Seal soon.
The door leads to the long dormant geothermal units. The equipment inside is useless, gathering dust for decades.
“Is something in there?” I’m as quiet as I can be in case the answer is yes.
Ghosts.He stands, takes a step back, and sits again.Things Sisan does not want inside.
But not a cavrinskh. Not a person.
I don’t bother locking it. I take a quick trip downstairs to Risk’s workbench and grab his welder.
When I get back, I tell Kissu, “Go back to Chrys.”
I don’t want her to come investigate the noise.
As soon as he’s out of sight, I light the torch and draw hot lines down each side of the jamb, across the top… I’ll have to ask Risk how to deal with the bottom.
Leaving the welder beside it, I follow Kissu’s path back upstairs.
He’s laid out across Chrys’ lap and she looks up at me, incredulous.
