“Are you sure you don’t need anyone else?” Furk asked. “Killmari could probably-”
“He already said he wants nothing to do with it.” Resta responded.
Kyle and Resta were both at a tight little grate waiting to venture to her brother's camp. All of the other animals and Greg were waving them goodbye.
“Well just be careful and come back safely. Just be safe overall.” The giraffe commented.
“We’ll both be alright, Brunt.”
“You guys have Greg to help you.” Kyle added on. “You’re all in really good hands.”
“We shouldn’t really kill any more time.” She followed up. “We best get going.”
“Please be careful.” Furk shouted out along with a few others.
Kyle and Resta left through a grate that he had to crouch through. It led to an open passage. He had grabbed one of the torches that were lingering around the entire campground as a light source, using it as a flashlight.
“This way.” She led him to a tunnel covered up by some ruined furniture that was just to the left of them, some of it seemed to be burnt up or just severely damaged. The tunnel went further down into the sewer system.
“It’s going to be quite a walk through here.” She explained. “A few turns but it’s mainly just a straight line.”
“Seems easy enough.” Kyle held out his torch to brighten up the passageway. “Go ahead.” He let his hand down and waved for her to go ahead.
They both went forward trotting along the groggy ground. It was somewhat slippery and the smell was unimaginably rotten. Kyle tried his best not to gag or just ignore it entirely but he could only bear it so much until he had to cover his mouth and nose with his shirt.
“Can you tolerate this?” He asked her, his voice slightly muffled behind the cloth of his shirt.
“Tolerate what? The smell?” She perked her head slightly to the left.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, when you live down here it just becomes natural.”
“I should’ve guessed that but damn. It’s almost unbearable.”
“Sorry for not warning you earlier. I wish I could do something to help.”
“My shirt is helping plenty.”
They turned right for another long stretch of darkness layered in greenish greasy ground.
“That reminds me. How long have you been living down here? Snakes don’t really live that long.” He asked.
“Oh gosh I haven’t really thought about it. Or even noticed it. I couldn’t really tell you, it all feels like it’s been ages ago.”
“You really can’t recall?”
“No, not really. If I had to give an answer I would say ten years or so maybe.”
“Hmmm, I guess you’re pretty old due to snake years.”
“I don’t like to think about that. They were teaching me about the lifespan of my species and-” She started to shudder at the thought of it. “When I read that I would only live up to eighteen years it startled me. Why don’t I get to live as long as humans? What's the point of giving me any of this when I won’t live long enough to see results of any of the work I was doing.”
“Were they trying to make you work on a project?”
“They told us that they were working on an experiment to make the perfect person. So they needed people to work on it and minds to contribute to it. That’s why they got animals to test out their hypothesis and to not waste resources or pay on new scientists so they used us as hitting two birds with one stone kind of solution.”
“Ah I see. So even with all of the power and funding they had they still wanted to cheap out on things? Always trying to capitalize for the most profit.”
“I guess. Whatever that means.”
Making another sharp left turn where the tunnel basically did a u-turn. It all felt like something out of a horror movie with them constantly walking down long winding dark corridors.
“This company seems so obsessed with creating perfection.” He pondered. “Did you know who was ultimately behind all of the experiments?”
“No.” She responded quickly. “They forbid us from knowing their name.”
“Damn. I was hoping I would get somewhere into figuring all of this out. Guess I should just drop it but I don't know. I’ve got more things to worry about and think of but I don’t know I’m just fixated on it.”
“Trust me you’re not alone. Almost all of my friends feel the same.”
“Can’t imagine. I think I’m so stuck on it because I felt something strangely personal from that place.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s the thing! I don’t know why, I’ve never felt like that before. But it was just there and I-You know I need to just drop it all.”
“Probably. But you shouldn’t just ignore that feeling.”
“You’re right. Just putting it aside for now.”
“Oh!” She spiked up her head like she had some revelation. “Do you think it has to do something with the fact that you’re um-” She paused. “What’s the word you used?”
“Indestructible?”
“Yeah that! You think it has something to do with all of that?”
“Hm. Maybe.”
“How did you even have this power anyways? I don’t think you explained it.”
“I don’t know. I just never really thought about it that much. Just, you know, accepted it.”
“Wow. Your parents never told you?”
“They didn’t know either. Neither did the doctors or anybody in my life knew. I just had this weird quirk that I’ve been stuck with. My parents found me in a metal tube floating down a river.”
“What!?”
“Yeah. Never knew my real parents. DNA tests didn’t come back with anything nor did anyone claim to be my parents. Never knew who my biological ones were. And if they're the type of person to just abandon their baby I don’t want to meet them.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But I bet the people who took care of you were amazing.”
“Ummmm. Let’s just say I don’t think there was much of a difference.”
A faint bit of squeaking came from behind them. It was so slight but with them being the only ones in the tunnel with their conversation echoing throughout the expansive tunnels it was way more noticeable.
Resta looked pretty concerned, her eyes shooting open wide. “We should hurry.”
“What is it?” Kyle asked.
“The rats.”
“Isn’t that normal?”
“No, these ones are not. Hopefully they didn’t smell us yet.”
“Ok.” He just zipped his mouth shut and headed her warning.
Some more squeaking came from directly behind them but whatever was the source of the noise didn’t seem to be singular. There seemed to be multiple creatures generating the sound. With every passing second it seemed that the cacophony of somewhat friendly squeaks slowly churned into more monstrous barks.
Kyle quickly picked up on the rising tension, plucked Resta right off the ground and carried her in his arms in full sprint. “Just tell me the directions.” He commanded. His full mood shifted entirely.
“Ok, ok.” She was completely startled, shivering a little with chills being shot down her spine like electricity in a cord.
The sound was filling the tunnel insanely quickly. In the darkness they couldn’t even see the threat but they knew for sure that they were being followed. Running down, almost slipping on the slimy ground, coming up to a fork in the path.
Kyle stopped and looked down at Resta. “Where to?” There were only two ways to go, left or right. Both options seemingly lead to the same old darkness that masked the pathway.
She stuttered for a bit, quickly scrambling her memory for the correct option. “Left!” She spouted out.
Hearing the direction he shifted his feet and went back into full on sprinting. The tunnel twisted in a little bit of a windy path to follow, it’s like it was built with the intention of it being an entire convoluted maze with interconnecting ways that can lead to dead ends or looping hallways.
“Do you know how close we are?” He asked her.
“Well I think we’re close. He just moved to the other side of the city.” She responded.
The screeches were sounding more far-off but it was no guarantee that they were now completely off their trail. But a small linger of hope simmered as the further he got from the fork he lessened his pace to catch his breath.
“I wish I had infinite stamina, man.” He joked as he gave himself a little rest. “Maybe I do need to workout more.”
She was shaking in his arms, staring straight forward curling up into a ball. “I’m sorry I knew this was way too dangerous with everything-”
“Resta!” He interrupted. “We’re fine.”
The squeaking came back even more ferociously. They both looked behind them and heard the horrifying noises drawing nearer.
“Well I promise you, you’re going to be alright.” He went back into full sprint. “If we’re close to them we can get to-”
A huge screeching metal scraping metal noise came from right behind them. Then the sound repeated throughout the entirety of the tunnel. It was clear that the worst had yet to come, the flood pipes were opening.
“Oh shit.” He said. “We’re close right?”
“I think yeah.” She responded back in extreme panic. “Just look for an open hole in the ground here.”
The sounds of water flushing out of pipes were thunderously loud as the rushing of the flood came closer. Kyle was scanning the ground for the hole in the ground with the danger coming closer and closer. Some droplets flew onto his leg.
Not looking back but staying laser focused to the ground where he finally spotted the hole. With the brief few seconds he had to analyze it was pretty small, only Resta could fit through.
“Oh my god! I forgot the hole was so small.” She sounded like she was going to cry. “I’m sorry I-” She continued to panically ramble on. He was not listening as his brain scrambled and cobbled up with a sudden solution. With not much time left he threw her to the hole.
“Go! I’ll be fine just go!” He yelled at her.
“But-” She hesitated.
“Get in!”
She didn’t give a response to that but only complied and duck into the hole where she fell down into a slide as tight as a water pipe. Kyle got washed away with the tsunami getting caught in the drift and washing away with the current. Some of the mutated rats flew by getting caught in the wave. They all looked grotesque with some gnarly looking rotten sharp teeth with ears as big as his head. The whole body was enlarged and seemed to be over fed.
He got hit along walls and the ground hitting some other metal pipes. He was able to get to the top of the water to get in some gasps of air. Wiggling around to stay afloat. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness but only a few lights peeping through. Though it seemed that it was just a hallucination.
His body got thrown around countless turns and twists. Landing directly into a metal wall. Where the water flow suddenly stopped and it was just still. Then a red light flashed a bit before being beaming down on him.
The pool he was floating around started to drain. Quickly putting pieces together he guessed that he was in some water filter. The rest of the liquid drained until there was nothing left but him.
He digested the environment he was just plopped into. With the irritating red light shining down he spotted above him a railing with a cat walk. Alongside that was a door and window to the control room for the whole thing. The ground he was standing on was just little metal slits that got all of the water down with remnants of whatever substance that were floating in there. Alongside were multiple corpses of rats that were in the flood with him.
“Hey!” A loud roar came from above him. He couldn’t see any outline of a person but the voice didn’t sound human. “We have a human in the trap!”
“Human?” He repeated back to himself. “Definitely more talking animals.”
A huge beaming spotlight turned on temporarily blinding him. Squinting his eyes open he got a brief glimpse of whatever was speaking earlier. A huge hulking bear covered in a lot of fur.
“Kill him.” A cougar came into vision commanded.
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“Where can we find these seeds?” Furk asked.
“Um well.” Greg stuttered to respond. “We have stores above.” All of the other animals were gathered around him near a campfire. He was sitting down on a wooden log leaning his head against his bat.
“Oh the grocery stores! Like what your friend mentioned before.” Brunt butted in.
“Yeah. Also other types that sell gardening stuff as well.”
“There’s multiple stores for different stuff? Why not just sell it all at one place?”
“Different companies and-you know it’s too complicated to explain but that's where you could get them. Getting direct sunlight is going to be really hard. I’m not sure light from any other source would work but maybe.”
“Do you truly know?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying with what I do. I didn’t even graduate high school and I ain’t no gardener or farmer.”
“Then why are you even trying to teach us anything?” Killmari stepped out of his tent.”If you don’t have anything to brighten up our situation you should just leave.”
“I’m sorry. I-We are trying. Kyle and I want to help.”
“Well we can’t survive off of your good intentions. If your help just winds up being repetition then we might as well have ignored you.” He headed over to the campfire. The soft orange red mixed glow reflecting off of his dark fur and rough gray face gave him a terrifying aura.
“What’s with this attitude you have?” He stood up. “Do you just have an issue with us because, we’re, we’re, um-” He tried to remember the term they were called.
“Fleshies? Yes.” He proudly stated. “You guys come into our lives, force experiments on us and then toss us aside when we don’t meet your standard.”
“You think that we-”
“All of you operate on the same wavelength!” He aggressively stomped forward. “Let me break it down for you since you don’t understand. All of you up above consume, consume, and consume leaving a whole path of pollution and waste behind your engorged backs. People coming into our habitats locking us up in cages to be looked at and mocked. All of you are sickening to me. Treating us like nothing even when we have the same level of mental prowess. Yet this is the life we get. The fucking shit hole that I waste the rest of my days in and my own tomb.”
“If you really hate us then why the fuck did you not join up with Resta’s brother or go up and start rioting?”
“Because I’m not a retard like he is. Bloodthirsty creatures like him only encourage the discrimination we face. If his plan of taking over the city above ever goes into motion. Then we’re truly fucking doomed.”
“Well are you even going to stop his plans at all? You’re going to do nothing? Just sit here and rot?”
“I would love to be helping but everything is going against us. Mutated rats in the sewer and humans up above will capture us and throw us into cages. We’re lucky enough to be scraping by only to be lectured by some fleshie. Spare me the moral high ground.”
“Maybe your bias has blinded you but I haven’t judged anybody here for them being animals. I haven’t bragged about humans being better so I don’t know where you get the idea. Just please calm down-”
“Don’t tell me how to control myself.”
“Well maybe you do need to be told.”
“I’ll fucking punch your fragile body.”
“Please you two!” Brunt stepped in. “Bickering about all of this is completely useless.”
“More worth my time than listening to him blabber on.” Killmari refuted. “If I have to sit here and let him just yap away then I’ll gladly just go back to my tent. They’re invading our space to try and ‘help’ us.” He lifted his hands to imitate quotation marks. “After everything we’ve been through, why are we even considering this?”
“I know what I can do to help all of you.” Greg spoke up.
“Sure.” He scoffed.
“I’ll get out of your hair for a bit, since that’s clearly what you want, I’ll bring all of you back something. Then I can prove to you what exactly we can do. Sit tight.” He jumped up from off the ground, grabbing his bat. He walked all the way over to the pipe that he slid down earlier, tilting his head up to look directly at it and launching off the ground with the bat. Disappearing directly like he got sucked up through the tube.
Everyone just sat there in awkward silence. “Well that didn’t go great.” Furk commented.
“I’m not sure why any of you are entertaining all of this nonsense. I thought we knew better.” Killmari ran on. “Stupid fucking snake why did she do any of this?” He face-palmed.
“Killmari. We understand why-”
“Furk I really appreciate it, I really do. But I know, all of you know. We don’t need repeating.”
“Maybe we need a deeper talk about it.” Brunt followed up.
“What?”
“It seems that you’re taking all of your anger out on him.”
“Not all of it. I restrained myself from beating that meathead into a fucking puddle.”
“That’s what we’re talking about. The hostility you hold is justified but not at another human. Just the people who harmed you.”
“I-I understand that. I-I-I-” He growled and huffed a huge breath of air. “Why did any of this happen to us, what did we ever do to deserve any of it.”
“None of us do.”
“You’re right. But whenever I see one I just can’t get a hold of my emotions. I just can’t help but get irrationally angry.”
“Maybe we can put that aside just this once. Give them a chance.”
Killmari looked away and grasped her hand on his chin. Growling slightly and he suddenly twitched his arm around. “Fine just-I’ll try my…” He paused. “Best! I’ll stop myself from talking or I’ll get carried away.”
“Thank you.”
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In the tight silver tube Resta ducked down into it and slithered her way down with some water flowing and grazing her scaly body. The liquid made the pipe slippery, making her slide all the way down.
She squeezed and screamed her way out of the pipe with the other huge gush of water. Plunging directly into another pool of muddied waters. She squirmed around as her vision suddenly got fuzzy, splish splashing around desperately trying to reach the top to breathe.
Lunging her body all the way to the surface she gasped for breath as the water dripped out of her vision and she could fully grasp her surroundings. She was inside a pool encapsulated by an expansive interior homestead. There were fully built little houses with strung up lights that seemed to be running with actual electricity.
Directly in front of her were some animals staring at her, completely puzzled. It was a lion, a wolf, and a hyena. A bald eagle came swooping down and clutched their claws onto her, lifting her high up into the sky.
It gave her a higher vantage point of the whole area. There were many tiny houses along with many, many more animals. More than what she had at her camp. The whole place was in a triangular like shape with the top of it having a staircase that led to a throne.
“We’ve finally got the spy!” The bald eagle yelled out. It dropped Resta right at the foot of the throne.
She was a little sore from all of the bouncing around and getting throttled. She noticed a figure sitting right down on the throne. Sheepishly looking up, her eyes shot wide open in shock with her eyebrows raised.
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