[5-10] Flights of Fancy (Christa and Red)

[Gildarts]

Looming over the opposite side of the door, listening closely next to a peeling scrap of white paint, a smile slithered to Took’s lips. His feet soundlessly carried him out the door of the building, all that time he’d spent in the forest had given him a key advantage necessary for survival here. Stealth.

Christa’s eyes wavered to the door before she gazed at Nanaki, her ear tilted in the direction of the fading heat source in the other room. She said nothing directly about the eavesdropper, “You’re really going to eat whatever he comes back with?”

It was almost a joke. Almost. Her ribs ached, breathing was difficult, but still the sniper managed to smile with him, there was a touch of laughter in her eyes, but the whole of the action had betrayed her, instead, she thought of the seriousness of it. “He has medical knowledge, he would know how to poison you.”

“Or you,” Red looked at the glass of water beside her.

“Anyway, Red, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say. This island, this place. It kind of makes me feel sick. And no, it isn’t my broken rib talking. I felt nauseous when Karl overtook me down there... Oh, Karl, he got dirty,” she smirked, “Not that I didn’t expect him to, I think he’s afraid. But then there’s the bunker. He didn’t stay. Sure we spooked him, but don’t you think, that if you were a billionaire, powerful prime, you’d want to stay safe and undetected until help arrived? I have this feeling that everything is very wrong. That, and what if help isn’t coming?”

Red took in her words, chewing on their significance. Humans always talked in a roundabout way, beasts on the other hand, bared their fangs. The huntress had left him to conclude her thoughts, and he agreed, “Overall, it makes me anxious. Like the island itself doesn’t want us here, like it has something to hide, it makes my skin crawl.” his demeanor changed, his expression blazed with fire, “If help isn’t coming, we’ll find a way.”

Christa thought that the lion looked brave in that moment, and she liked the sound of that plan, nothing made her happier than the idea of getting off this hulking rock as soon as possible, except... Pulling out the pack of cigs that prodded her thigh, she laid out her stash in front of her, in the light of Red’s flickering tail. The cigarettes, the key, and the radar, with its screen black. Karl could’ve broken it, but the glass was intact. It was just off, less beeping. There was a small, wilted bag of ammunition she pulled out and remaining in her pants was the picture and envelope. A sigh escaped her. She was low on bullets for her sniper, meanwhile, she had a decent store of magazines for her melted nine millimeter. The cigarettes. There was a spark of warmth in her gut when she looked at them and she tried to pull her gaze over to the key, but then she imagined the familiar smell  filling her nose.

The blonde shook her head, telling herself to speculate and decide their next course only using the facts, but deep down, she already knew it wasn’t that simple anymore, she couldn’t even bear the sound of his name, “I want to find him, and then go after my sister, but you know, the guy who took her, well, I know nothing about. He told me to find some girl, left her picture in the Nexus and gave me a time limit. It’s all a sick game. I just want to know how Karl knows about it. You know, when I see his face, I want to kill him, but then I realized the reason I didn’t on the beach, and it made me want to turn the gun on myself. He’s a smarmy son of a bitch, narcissistic douche, crooked businessman, and a complete asshole but I actually respect the motherfucker. He’s got that look, he wants to survive.”

Red reflected on Karl’s cool expression, and perhaps the tame power behind it. She was the opposite, fierce, she wore the fire on her face, but each of them had the same look in their eyes. It wasn’t desperation, no, it was willpower. They were alike. They were immortal and both of them had something to lose.

“In the morning,” Christa’s voice got louder, “I’ll look for some bullets, doubt they’ll be my caliber but it wouldn’t hurt to search the place with a little more light.”

Took didn’t break his stride to listen as he neared the door, he simply turned the knob slowly. Click! Creeeeaak. The cannibal entered the room with a dead rabbit in his hands and tossed it to the talking lion, he could do his own dirty work.

“Welcome back.” Christa said in a surprisingly charmed voice. Red was keen to this, but the aroma of the game filled his senses, which were teetering on the depths of his hunger. His nose sniffed first, before plunging into the still-warm fur as he drove his saber-sized teeth in for his first savory bite.

“Hello,” Took said hesitantly, she was so easy to read, she had something on her mind and there was no way in Hell she wouldn’t say it in the next sentence or two.

“See anything out there?”

“As a matter of fact, a few miles into the woods, there was a single set of large footprints. They sunk deep into the dirt, the guy must’ve been dense.” He told no lies.

“Spooky, wonder who they belong to, did you get a look?”

“No, I was trapping a rabbit.” Took could feel the hare’s convulsing muscles in his hands while the fur below its neck squirmed. Finally its lungs had given out, but not before he’d heard the little creature’s final scream.

“So I’m curious, Took,” she said lightly, “Why didn’t you go mad like the other cannibals? Because that’s what you’d have to be to eat people, mad.” Christa asked him point-blank. She was a straight shooter, all the easier to fool.

There was no reason to flinch, he’d expected this, his face settled into a smooth mask, “I could ask you the same question, I don’t even know how long you’ve been on this island.”