The Secondary Saga

[Gildarts]

"I'm not the one..." Who killed your sister.

She heard his words matched with her own, and ceased the retaliation that had set fire to her soul. Now, slung over the man's shoulder, she was nothing more than a heavy bag of rocks. At least rocks could be thrown at someone, she had an empty pistol and no energy to exchange another clip. The woman was nothing more than a burden on his shoulder. And she couldn't help it.

It was rather unlike her to accept such a situation, but both Abner's pep-talk and the wound in her gut made an equally compelling argument. A few more blasts and the zombie brains scattered across the dismal forest floor. The hauntings of darkness slowly petered out, and the undead wanderings became less frequent.

Christa had fallen unconscious on his shoulder, not from the pain, but her eyelids drooped from all the gooey blood loss.

...

Abner and Christa sat in the dark.

No zombies dared come near them. Still the screams of the night could be heard in the wandering forest of decay.

The blonde had riffled through the dead man's pockets and found little of relevance, aside from a picture of his family in the chest pocket of his blue over coat. The man in blue... A hypocrite. She couldn't help thinking as she scoured his body for his personal effects. On the back of the photo, inscribed in thick lines of ink, was a date that cast her reeling mind back into her own memories. The ones of her sister, the same that held so much regret.

The alluring echo of a foreboding gunshot carried over the many gnarled branches and clouded her already foggy mind. Neither of the two said much and Christa couldn't tell if the propped up Abner was asleep, or pretending to be. No fire was lit between them – that would alert the already too aware enemy – and the horrors of the deathly land continued to loom over with the climbing suspense of the empty air. It was her shift now – to stay alert for the monsters that craved her sweet scented flesh, perhaps that same thing would lead Urg back to them.

In her hands she held the pistol, it was now loaded with her normal bullets and the familiar metal was cold to the touch as she clicked the magazine softly into place. With another glance down, the veteran had looked at the laceration that cut along her ribs. The gauss was soggy with hardened crimson gore and her body had numbed the acute pain's nagging sensation from her untidy mind.

It had taken quite a few makeshift stitches but now the bloody job was done. The cold night air was crisp with every small inhale of her lungs and with every steamed exhale, the moon's light caught on the wisps of cloud before her lips. Another glance flashed over to the stranger who had all too quickly became her sole companion in all of this. Her pale eyes sliced through the night affirmed that he wasn't being eaten alive, though she couldn't say the same for the others they had been separated from.

"You want to say something, say it." His eyes snagged hers and held her hostage with the subtle shimmer of conviction. Apparently, he wasn't asleep.

Christa rarely hesitated but in this staunch moment, her tongue hung dry. 'Sorry' wasn't really in her vocabulary, though 'debt' certainly had its place, so she lifted her shirt and gestured to the gauss, particularly unsure of what he could and couldn't see in this dim light and muttered, "Thanks." Mainly, for saving her ass.

Abner opened his mouth, ready to speak his mind but was fatefully interrupted by a streak of white.

It's movement stagnated over the injured Christa, and he soon distinguished the being as a youth-sized figure with long, freshly thrashed hair, and donned in a white dress. The woman held up her revolver to the translucent girl, registering the apparition's arrival as just another unrecognized, extremely dangerous demon of the Tangled Green.

Before Abner could voice that he recognized the girl, he noticed that Christa had paused to look at her for a long time. Had the ghost taken any other form, she wouldn't have waited to blast a bullet through it's chest. Not that a steel bullet could do anything to a supernatural being that could walk through walls.

The resemblance was uncanny, so much, that Christa's jaw remained open in awe.

"I'm not your sister." The child said in an ominous tone, as though reading the injured woman's mind.

"Wait, she can help us," he warned to Christa, who would not pry her eyes away from the child.

"Who are you?" It was no longer a question, but a demand, perhaps even a little harsh on the spirit who had taken the form of a little girl.

Both the humans were standing now, Christa had yet to lower her weapon but not a thing in the world could convince her to fire at the child that looked so much like her sister. The name remained on the tip of her tongue. It had been three hundred and sixty eight days since she had seen her beloved sister, Katia.