Chapter 23: Overstayed our Welcome

Chapter 23: Overstayed our Welcome

You know, I was starting to think the only appropriate response to dramatic revelations and trauma was to walk it off.

 

To start off with, my first life. Death by burning alive. I can still smell the burnt pork, but it wasn’t pork, it was my first life’s flesh being cooked like smoked pork.

 

Next up: nearly die in an icy storm while Mom wasn’t waking up from a magic ritual you still didn’t quite fully get but apparently let you do basic magic? Oh, and pray for help, discover the gods are dead the next day. Can’t forget that, of course. Doesn’t take away the fact you still need to eat and sleep and clean up next day, so do that and contemplate existence in a quiet moment.

 

Get sidetracked on a dark ship, lost, locked away, panic, cry in the devouring dark that felt like it was trying to slither into my brain,  find way out only with something’s help, confess to Mom you don’t know what happened but it was scary and not right? Get comforting cuddles, go home, eat, bathe, and get up next day for foraging.

 

Nearly die to a horrifying woman in the water who wasn’t a woman but wore one’s face and who I still see in my dreams before crashlanding on a new landmass? Gather supplies and go on an extended hike because camp still needs to be made.

 

Finally, today. Discover your mom and ship spirit are technically time travelers who survived what could only be a global apocalypse that was so destructive they were thrust forward in time as the space time axis presumably became spaghetti? More cuddles but be sure to eat your seal stew the nice hunters and refugees are providing.

 

…

 

 

This bothered me.

 

“Mama? Why are we acting like we didn’t discover you and Sandy are time travelers? It’s kinda weird. We’re just, uh, eating and having lessons like normal.”

 

Mom tried to quickly swallow, choked, pounded on her chest, and only finally managed to gasp out a somewhat stern, “Gwen!” with a cough.

 

“Not a bad question, to be honest,” Sandy mused from her spot. Today, she was on the little window seal, at her request. I think she liked looking at the clouds.

 

“Oh, not you too,” Mom muttered. She flicked her hair and breathed while I waited. “Well, sweetie, lets walk through it. You’re right. I’m, and this sounds just as strange to me, but I am a time traveler. What do we do now?”

 

I blinked. Thought. Thought some more. I opened mouth. Closed it.

 

“Not sure, huh? That’s fine Kitten, but I’ll let you in on a secret. Neither am I,” Mom sighed. “I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of things scholars and researchers could say, heck the old priests might have a word, but, well, I’m not them, and we’re all the way out here,” Mom said, gesturing vaguely. “I’m still not sure where here is, beyond somewhere in Illiana.”

 

“To be fair, knowing this doesn’t exactly change anything. You all still need to eat, bathe, clean yourselves, and more,” Sandy said.

 

“True. But all of that stuff before is, like, ‘maybe’ or ‘could’, not what we’re actually able to deal with.” Mom looked aside for a moment before commenting, “Life continues, whether we like it or not.”

 

I tilted my head, and found the words resonated with me.

 

My first life died because of a Furby. He, uh, had it bad. But I was here now. Life continued.

 

I blinked. I really hoped Furbies weren’t a thing here.

 

“So, anyway, I was thinking of getting you all started on some more complex sentence structure, possibly even vary up the conjugation and—”

 

A piercing scream filled the air.

 

Mom was on her feet in an instant and grabbed her shard thrower from its place in the corner. She grabbed Sandy. “Gwen, stay here!” Then she was out the door.

 

I’d barely had time to blink.

 

I rushed to the door. I wasn’t stepping out. I knew I couldn’t help, but a peek couldn’t hurt and that scream…

 

It was bad. Like something precious inside someone broke levels of bad.

 

I peeked through the door and saw a commotion in the field by the campsite. At first, I wasn’t sure what I to look for. There were a lot of people rushing across the field. I followed their trajectory to see two figures, hunters who’d left that morning I think, carrying someone between them and —

 

Blood.

 

So. Much. Blood.

 

I gulped.

 

A cat folk woman, one of the perverts who ogled Mom earlier, had collapsed before them. She was shaking, even at this distance. Her claws were on her face.

 

I couldn’t make out more details. But his shoulder didn’t look right. And there was so, so much red and black covered his body that I could just see, even from the shack.

 

That, that wasn’t survivable, was it?

 

Jonas, Mom, and other cat folk rushed over, and soon my line of sight was obscured as they crowded around to presumably try to treat him.

 

I glanced back toward the camp and did a double take on seeing Zenn, standing there, forgotten. Or maybe she had been told to stay in the tent and didn’t listen, like me.

 

She wasn’t moving. Just standing there, watching. Her tail was low. Her ears were perked straight up, alert.

 

I…

 

Mom would be okay with this. I think.

 

I called to Zenn. I don’t know why I tried to say it softly as I knew she wouldn’t hear it at this distance. She didn’t respond.

 

I stepped out and called again, firmer this time. She still didn’t respond.

 

I ran over to her, head on a pivot as I looked back and forth between her and the fallen cat folk.  No one noticed I was out. Understandable. Someone they probably all knew and loved was probably dead. His hair looked like one of the two male cat folk who had joined in with the woman ogling Mom.

 

I didn’t know his name. Zenn probably did. She’d been with them a while, even if I knew they were together by necessity.

 

I was right next to Zenn, and she still hadn’t acknowledged me. I tugged on her arm. She slowly turned to stare at me blankly.

 

I slowly guided her back to the shack. She didn’t resist, nor did she speed up. She just followed.

 

I shut the door behind us and sat her down on a bedroll.

 

I didn’t know what else to do.

 

“Zenn?” I asked.

 

She didn’t respond. This close, I noticed all the hair on her tail, on her ears, everywhere, were standing on end. Her teeth seemed to be clattering.

 

She said nothing.

 

If she’d said something, anything, if she’d been panicking, I would’ve been less worried.

 

I settled for sitting next to her. I didn’t hug her as I didn’t know if she wanted that, but the moment I sat down she made the choice for me as she clutched to my side. Well, more I was clutched to her side, again.

 

Any other time, I may have complained. I didn’t.

 

To be honest, every little feature of Zenn, the standing up fur, the slight shaking, probably applied to me as well. I was just more cognitive than she was.

 

I settled in to hold her back as we waited for the adults to figure out what to do.

 

~~~~

 

The funeral was that night.

 

Mom and Sandy said he got attacked while hunting the nearby seal colony seals but were cagey on what really happened. I wondered if they knew I knew they weren’t telling me everything. But I got it. I really did. I was a useless, stupid, five-year-old.

 

 Zenn was still really quiet. At least she ate the bowl of seal stew Mom got for her. She was still holding my arm and wouldn’t let go. Jonas had checked on her, and besides a hitch in her throat and a brief switch to holding onto him like he would disappear while I went to pee, hadn’t otherwise changed positions.

 

The funeral was hasty; the grave shallow. A pile of rocks placed over it the only thing to prevent a wild animal from digging him up. They didn’t really stand out from any other rocks scattered around the marker was a large stick with a bit of red cloth. I think it was cloth from his shirt or his tunic. I wasn’t sure. I stood with Mom. Zenn was still on my side and Jonas hadn’t had the spirit to try more than once to pry her off.

 

The refugees took turns speaking. The woman who’d screamed was still crying. I didn’t know if it was progress from her sobbing earlier or if her voice had just grown so hoarse as to be unable to keep up. I wondered if her ears would ever perk again.

 

I couldn’t keep track of more than one word in fifteen. I didn’t really try. Sandy was whispering to Mom, but otherwise I was excluded. I was fine with that. This wasn’t for me.

 

Another death, another person I didn’t know whose loss I struggled to feel for. It was shocking, but I hadn’t even known his name before tonight.

 

It was Brian.

 

Something about it was shockingly mundane sounding.

 

I think what shocked me most wasn’t the fact he was dead. I didn’t know him. But it was seeing the reality of death laid out for me. I’d seen graves before. Even a skull before. But that was a bobble, something barely real. Never a body. Never a mortal wound, no matter how hazy and indistinct it might’ve been at a distance.

 

This world wasn’t safe.

 

I listened for a while longer. There were tears shed. Some laughs. I think they were telling stories of his life. I couldn’t keep up more than scattered words. Sandy whispered to me and Mom to help, but even there I felt a bit lost after a while…

 

I was disappointed in an odd sense. In myself? Or was it sadness in I wouldn’t even have one story of this stranger to take with me in life?

 

The speaker changed. Jonas spoke this time. I think I understood him more than most. Something about comfort and being born again. Like what Mom said about the graves back on the island. Like Celia.

 

I listened as I could.

 

Then the crying woman stood to begin speaking. …

 

An acrid scent burned my nostrils.

 

I blinked and made a face. It was that unpleasant.

 

It wasn’t a fart. I knew that much. Besides, I imagine there’d have been reactions to that.

 

It was oddly musky. Like a wet rag left out too long and had gotten moldy. But it was mixed with something else. Sea salt and something animal-like. I didn’t know how else to describe it, it was something I could only define as animal.

 

The scent was getting stronger.

 

Still, no one reacted. I started swiveling my head around. Mom noticed with a frown and tapped my shoulder. I barely paid attention as I focused on the scent.

 

The musky, animal scent was pungent, stricken with something distinctly earthly and oily, but this wasn’t like Sandy’s faint scent of machine oils and mint. This felt cruder, almost pungent, sulfurous.

 

The scent spiked, grew far stronger in seconds.

 

I gagged. I felt like the scent had become tangible and coated my throat.

 

I staggered to my feet, swirling as I faced a certain hill. My hair rose.

 

My eyes shot open. I hissed.

 

Some of the funeral goers looked at me confused; one or two a bit angrily. They didn’t know.

 

Something was coming.

 

Tha-thump.

 

Words died on assorted lips in the twilight as an arm crested the hill.  I say arm. I didn’t know what else to call it. It looked like it might have been a flipper, once, but the webbing had shredded to nothing but scraps of flesh leaving only long, bloodied bone-fingers behind. Bones it used like claws to rip into the rocky soil to pull itself forwards.

 

I’d seen pictures of seals in one or two of the survival manuals Mom had. I’d seen their bodies. Mom brought one back, after all, plus hunters had been bringing in one or two a day for a week now. Meat to dry and smoke, and hides to do something with, I wasn’t sure. They were kinda weird; they looked like seals from my first life, but with a distinctive ridge line over their skulls that almost gave them a mohawk look.

 

This thing was orders of magnitude bigger than even the largest specimen they’d hauled back. Its left flipper dragged alongside it, utterly withered. So was the back tail flipper, too, from what I could see. It compensated with extreme muscles in its front body and right flipper. Or what was left of it, skin shredded and exposed bone to make long claws I just knew could rip and impale flesh with ease. It paused on seeing us and reared up. Its mouth opened. But it wasn’t like a normal seal’s mouth.

 

Teeth.

 

I did not wet myself.

 

…

 

Maybe a little.

 

It was like a lamprey. What looked like thousands of teeth interlocking teeth. Drool continuously dripped below. It was grotesque. And huge.

 

Big enough to swallow me whole.

 

I wish it had roared. That, at least, would be expected.

 

Instead, after observing everyone and tilting its head to eye us with one split eye that looked directly at me, it slammed back to the ground and started undulating its whole, grotesque body forward with the help of its ruined flipper claw.

 

There was no fear. Just prey.

 

Tha-thump.

 

Someone shouted. Mom was in front of me.

 

It kept coming.

 

Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

 

Everyone burst into action as it sped toward us.

 

Many cat folk went for their set improvised weaponry. Those with tridents or knife spears out in front, clubs on the side or behind. A line quickly formed, weapons levied as it approached in near silence save for the sound of its hide scraping on the rocky soil and its claw digging in periodically to drag itself forward.

 

The crying woman from earlier, the one whose name I still didn’t know, rushes to take place behind the line. She raised her rifle.

 

Thunder split the wind. Red and black oil tore out of its muscular body with a spray and chunks of gray flesh. It flinched, but only from the impact. It whirled on the cat woman who’d shot it even as black smoke filled the air.

 

This prompted a change. The refugees turned hunters all, nearly in some pack or pride like unison, began to growl and hiss. They spread out around it, prowling. It remained silent and sized up its opponents. At no point did it show fear.

 

Then I was taken away. So was Zenn. Mom grabbed us both as she rushed us away. I looked over her shoulder as the hunters tore into it.

 

Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

…

 

I’d been wondering what that frantic beat was. But that was silly of me. It was me. My heart.

 

I had been hyperventilating this whole time. Neat. Hahaha.

 

I didn’t see the rest of the fight. Mom deposited me and Zenn at the shack. Ran back out with her shard thrower. I heard it fire three times with its soft but distinctive whoosh; the black powder gun thundered twice more. Zenn covered her face.

 

“Nid eto nid eto nid eto.”

 

Her voice was small. It took a second for me to realize she was saying, “Not again” over and over.

 

I hugged her. It took her a bit to realize I was there, then she was back to holding a death grip on me. That’s fine, I was doing the same to her.

 

~~~~

 

Later that night, we were packing. Jonas spoke to us. Sandy translated. A fire burned behind him.

 

“We’ve stayed too long. It’s no longer safe. We’re leaving. Tonight.”

 

Mom didn’t argue.

 

I didn’t.

 

I really didn’t want to be here anymore. I was just glad to leave.

 

As we left the campsite and the shack behind, I couldn’t help but feel an odd itch in the back of my throat.

---

Chapter 23 Author’s Note

 

And that’s a wrap. I decided to drop this chapter a little bit early because Christmas, might as well give people a bit of an early treat. I don’t think I can give another chapter on Saturday given my difficulty writing lately, so just one chapter this week.

 

Wildlife got a little testy with their continued presence, eh?

 

But no, seriously. That thing would eat leopard seals for lunch. I call it a false seal. They’ve become endemic. :3

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