Uncharted

[Caira Ayryn]

The Prime was hit with a bullet, however there was no instantaneous death to be brought from the heavy pounding of the lead ball on her skull. Caira’s left eye closed with the shuddering impact as the world swirled around her and the edges of sand seemed to sink into her feet as her balance nearly collapsed inward. The pain thudded loudly in her ear but as she clasped the injury, she felt no blood gurgling from the wound. Death wasn't brought so easily, and the pain would not be relieved no matter how many breaths she seemed to take. Tch.. She thought to herself and swung her body and good eye leftward, trying to pinpoint the aggressor through the haze of agony.

In the ringing of her ears, one of them said, “Don’t do that, you’ll damage the meat.” While batting away the secondary’s aim.

“YOU FOOL!” Their leader, Tartar screeched with an intrinsic caterwauling choler.

Through the illusory winds of action, a large panther-like cat appeared from behind the Cannibal King -the clan's monarch- and with a beckon of his pink fist, targeted the only cannibal with a raised revolver in his hand and a ferocious intense look etched into his ragged features.

The cougar launched itself forward at the command of it’s master, into the neck of the omissive disjointed ally with a steaming revolver. A crimson sea of blood bubbled from the fatal wound and a stain of rouge hemmed around the lioness’s mouth.

The dead impudent secondary was dragged at the feet of the dizzy Caira as a heinous apology formed to the leader as the nearly dead man presumed a strange sense of vindicating humility. Between the lines of the formal regret was something that she did not pick up on, however Merik did as he came to his senses before the murder and validated the dead man not only as an offering of forgiveness but also, a meal.

“It is not so.. Often, that I meet Primes in this hellish, deserted jungle..” Tartar seethed in the gruffness of his voice and within the glare of his squint there was a strange invitation as the pair became his hostage guests. Tartar was tired of his repugnant crowd that he conducted with ease at their submissive obedience to his oppressive coercion particularly influenced by his savage corporeality. The pair was lead at spearpoint to Tartar’s lair and their main encampment as he explained, “These imbeciles don’t understand why Primes can’t be eaten,” As the dead man that had taken a shot at Caira passed on the shoulders of a bronzed man. At least not conventionally.. Tartar added in his mind with a resting satisfaction of his endless display of power and wit presumed over the ne’er-do-wells.

The naive Caira looked to Merik, who grated his teeth in disgust. Sorry, did I catch that right, did he say.. Eaten? Her expression spoke to Merik however his eyes were dulled with the gloss of pain and the distraction of thinking up a strategy to escape this hellish dungeon.

“Don’t worry, I know you won’t eat him.” Tartar explained with a gestured glance toward the fallen enemy as the bloodied cougar found itself prowling at Tartar’s waist with its eyes narrowed with superiority.

Caira remembered the blaze of action and Tartar whom had killed his own comrade. The echo of the gaunt word eat yet again used corresponding to human flesh finally sunk into her thick skull. “So you.. Eat people?” Her voice hinted with a few resounding layers of accusation of the man's disintegrated morality and suddenly it shattered on her: A horrified realization of truth that was the corruption of mankind.

Merik nudged her rib with an elbow as if to say Don’t however Tartar seemed delighted, as if she were playing right into his inclined topic of conversation.

“Yes, you do seem like a delicate girl in that sense. Lemme guess? Vegetarian?” Tartar’s sneering chuckle fell into a frowning grimace as she interrupted his dominance.

“But.. You’re a person! Why don’t you just feed them with the meat of animals?”

“I think that where you are from, the... Policy is a bit abstract.” Tartar observed in a taunting demeanor as his eyes grazed her sword with a Camelot insignia.

“But... You could just as easily hunt for food..”

“Hunt all day for these rotten scum? In a friggin' desert? Don’t lie to yourself girl. These men are worse than I am. I simply conduct them in a way that suits my own needs.” With a pause the bandit continued, “Some of them can’t even speak, whether their words were taken by madness, or that they never learned at all, one thing remains the same of them all. They are ruthless brutes who understand nothing but the singular code of unwavering power. My sovereign in this area is what keeps our clan’s populous growing. And, if you can believe it, they come to serve me.”

“But.. How can you possibly choose this morality? You make them into killers!” Caira spoke to the cannibal as though he were a man she could reason with. She could not see -for she did not want to- that monsters of men were not the kind that could not be reasoned with.

Merik, standing quietly in observation, couldn’t comprehend how Caira was actually arguing ethics with a cannibal. However Tartar spoke with a wiser tongue than he even had expected. Merik wondered exactly how this man's role played into Caira’s oh-so-determined laws of survival and scoffed in amusement at the unending paradox and unending fault within her previous argument of evolution.

Tartar growled with anger, “They do it to themselves. Every man here has killed his prey, some without purpose, others without care. Murder and life aren’t as immortalized in this desert as they are in the land where you are from. Besides, I’ve seen them strangle each other like the snakes that they are. Nothing would stop them from doing it to strangers, there is no order in the desert, and I'm their only authority.”

With a glance that caused a revolt of pure hatred in Caira as she caught sight of the Cannibal King’s synthetically sharpened teeth, akin to that of a beast. Teeth for the prying of flesh off of man, snagged teeth to match the snarling expression the barbaric king wore as Caira finally figured out what material the crown adorned upon his head was made with. It had been a strange looking crown made from ivory that was human teeth. The irony was sick, but not sicker than her stomach.

“I’ll let my wife keep an eye on you.” He said as the mountain lion prowled from the depths of darkness and perched itself at the front of their jail.

Tartar left the two in the dungeon cave within the Barracks that was their cannibal camp. When Merik found that Tartar was out of earshot, his voice whispered and the walls seemed to chant back at him in a snakelike shiver, “We must escape..”