I slid off the collapsed crawler’s back, landing roughly on the floor.
My hand finally let go of the dagger as I properly registered the pain in my chest. I heard movement to the side, and soon enough Lily was helping me to my feet.
I carefully poked around my chest, examining for any sudden spikes in pain.
I sighed in relief, only to break into a cough midway.
’At least, I didn’t crack a rib.’
Didn’t change the fact that it hurt like hell. Pushing myself off Lily’s shoulder, I found Maki getting off her knees. Her gaze locked on her palms.
That got her attention as the girl flicked her head in my direction.
"I should be asking you that."
"Don’t think I broke anything."
The girl shook her palms before putting them down.
She picked her fallen rapier and flashlight from the side, then turned her gaze towards the staircase.
"Can you still hold your crossbow? We need to get moving soon, there might be more crawlers still lurking around."
I tested walking and moving my shoulders a bit.
Although my chest still hurt. It was a sort of numb, throbbing ache that didn’t affect my movements too much.
Scanning the floor with a flashlight, I found my crossbow lying against the wall. Luckily, the weapon was made rather ruggedly, so throwing it hadn’t damaged it at all.
From the side, Lily handed me my dropped dagger before adding.
"Thanks for saving me."
I wasn’t angry at the girl, but she was starting to become a burden on the team.
’Why have axes if you aren’t even gonna use them.’
I, a ranged fighter with a weakened constitution, had been forced into close combat. While we had a perfectly healthy axe wielder.
Physically, between the three of us, Lily might have been the strongest.
’How the hell am I the one getting slapped in the chest?’
Ok, maybe I was lying earlier. I was a little mad.
Still, I held it in. The girl wasn’t completely a burden; her sensing ability had been very useful. Plus, she wasn’t a problematic teammate.
’I can handle this much.’
Before going to the monster, I spoke to her again.
"You’ve got to get your head in the game, Lily, we won’t be there to save you every time."
With that, I got down to the grisly work of retrieving my bolts. I fired two at the monster; one was a bit warped, while the other looked completely fine.
Both were still usable. Cleaning the gunk on the dead monster’s skin, I loaded my crossbow with the warped one while dropping the other into my hip quiver.
I returned to my original position afterwards, reattaching my flashlight to the body of the weapon before giving Maki the go sign.
Soon after, we were on the move again.
Luckily, it seemed the Crawler was the only monster in the building. Combing through the upper floors only showed more dust and rot, with some signs of the Crawler’s habitation here.
Otherwise it was all completely empty.
Standing at the entrance of the tenth floor, the highest floor in the building, the space was proving to be empty as well.
Behind the door lay a large room that took up a majority of the floor. Strewn around its interior were decayed furniture and electronics.
The staircase still led upwards, towards a rooftop hatch. But we were fine with settling here for now.
After all, the blizzard still raged on outside.
Stepping inside, Maki moved us towards the corner furthest from the door before finally relaxing. We’d be setting up camp here.
Both Maki and I collapsed on the walls of the room, while Lily moved around shifting through the piles of ruined furniture.
I found Maki staring at her hands again. This time I turned my flashlight in her direction, blinding her a bit.
But I saw it, thin bloody lines crisscrossing her palms. Blood slowly dripped from the marks.
’Are those from the threads?’
The girl didn’t reply to me immediately, instead turning her flashlight straight into my eyes, momentarily blinding me.
’That’s not very... ohhh.’
"Just a bit, nothing too serious."
The girl carefully squeezed her hands open and closed, scrunching her face as she did so.
’That doesn’t look like just a bit.’
Still, I didn’t press the girl. She’d handled herself pretty fine when we’d been clearing the upper floors.
At that moment, Lily came back from her scavenging with a small pile of wood. Dropping it on the floor, she noticed Maki’s bloody palms as well.
In typical Lily fashion she began fussing over Maki’s hand. It took quite a bit of shooing from Maki’s side before she finally let go.
The girl seemed colder to Lily. She likely was a bit disappointed in her as well.
Neither of us said anything though, instead Maki pulled out a lighter before setting the pile on fire.
I inched closer to the warmth of the flame, still gently prodding my chest when I could. There were still no sudden spikes in pain as I did so, meaning I was likely in the clear.
Seeing Lily taking out a can of rations, I stopped her.
The girl gave me a confused look. I simply explained.
"We only have enough of those to go around for three days. Right now, we have a monster corpse, a fire, and are in relatively safe territory. We need to try cooking it."
Even Lily had a disgusted look on her face. I rubbed my forehead in frustration.
"Come on, I’ve researched this stuff. It isn’t poisonous to hunters, plus even if it tastes awful, there’s no way it can be as bad as the ration packs."
The memory of the ration packs quickly brought Maki to my side. The girl stood up.
"I’ve heard enough, let’s go."
I gave her a wry smile, before standing up as well. Both of us travelled back down to the fifth floor, leaving Lily to tend to the flame.
Carrying the entire carcass up with us would have been tiring and almost downright impossible. So we settled for cutting off its appendages and dragging them up with us.
Well, Maki did most of the dragging.
Either way, at the end of it all, we sat before the flame. Eight human-like appendages propped up for roasting.
I found myself quickly losing appetite as I stared at the roasting limbs. Although we’d cut off the most human-looking portions of the limbs, it didn’t change the fact that it was still structured like a human limb.
Multi-jointed and draped in a deathly pallor, both still a human limb nonetheless. Fresh chapters posted on novęlfire.net
On the bright side, perhaps because the Crawler was at the stage of maturity, the limb didn’t have the same rotten stench and blood as the Shamblers. That wasn’t to say it smelled remotely nice of course.
When the limb had darkened to a stage that I approximated to be somewhat done, we took it off the flame before setting it against the wall.
My second dagger was used to divide the limb into multiple portions. One for each of us.
We all just sat down staring at the meat in silence for some time. Eventually, I caved in first.
Shutting my eyes, I carefully bit a portion off the flesh, trying not to imagine how human the limb looked.
Chewing it carefully. It tasted slightly bitter, stringy, and a little bit gamey. Still...
"...Far better than the rations."
Maki shot a glance at me, then at the flesh, before picking it up. That much was enough for her. Lily caved in not long after.
And so we sat around the flame, feasting on the flesh of the beast that tried to hunt us down.
It wasn’t until night had fallen that the blizzard finally let up.
By then we had already cooked all the monster’s limbs. We’d eaten two more of them for lunch, while saving the remaining for dinner and breakfast tomorrow.
To keep the flame going, we’d gathered even more furniture from the lower floors to add to the pile. But with the blizzard not covering us anymore, I had no choice but to turn it off.
Sure, we could have likely blocked any light from escaping by barricading the room. But that wouldn’t solve the fundamental issue of the Predator.
The bastard had heat-tracking capabilities, within a wide range as well. The monster would be released by midnight.
Although it would only be targeting the outskirts when it arrived. I still deemed it better to be safe than sorry.
With the darkness of night preventing me from doing any effective scouting. there was little more we could do besides eating two cold limbs, and turning in early for the night.
the moment the clock struck midnight. A message, I had stayed up expecting yet dreading popped up.
[Warning: The Predator has now been released.]