Meliora - Extricate - 30

[lady_mab]

Zoné Altair

I keep my phone out for the sole purpose of following the map. While I'm generally shit with directions, I have a feeling that a blue dot (indicating me) moving towards a red dot (indicating our goal) can't be messed up.

It also gives me the perfect distraction for avoiding conversation with Jun.

"Zoné."

"Nope."

"Zoné, can we please--"

"Nope. Gotta watch where we're going."

"We can talk and stare at the map at the same time."

I ignore her and let her questions bounce off the back of my head.

It’s late. It’s windy. We’re heading through a dead zone with no reception.

There’s very little else out here to do but focus on the map and ignore her.

"This is really unfair. You try to get me to open up about my uncle, so I do. You tell Glen that he has people that he can turn to in times of trouble, and you do too." I hear a sharp gasp from her, but refuse to turn around. "Stop, I cannot keep up with your long legs!"

I pause, waiting for her to regain her footing. "If I take it slow, will you stop asking me to talk about my feelings?"

She frowns, knocking her hair out of her face. Her pink strands are pushed around her head like a fuzzy cloud. My own hair, largely cropped close except for the floppy bit on top, does just that: Flops.

"No, I will not," Jun says.

I start to turn away, prepared to leave her, but then she launches herself at my arm and nearly knocks me off balance. "Hey! Watch it!" I'm clumsy enough as it is, and I’m barely able to keep my grip on my phone. "If either of us gets hurt, we don't have a signal to reach someone who can help us."

She loops her arm around mine and forces me to match her pace. Despite her earlier words of protest, she can keep up well enough with me as I pick my way over the loose shale. "I have a signal."

"What? How?" I think the only reason my map still works is through the Almighty Powers of ALICE. There can't be any cell towers to triangulate a position all the way out here. It was a forty-five minute bus ride and, so far, a ten minute walk to get to where we are.

We are outside of Eminence's jurisdiction.

She shrugs. "No more free answers."

A whine escapes me and I almost stomp my foot in frustration. "Don't be like this."

"Don't you be like this," she counters, though the severity of her statement is undercut by a fierce shiver that makes her teeth rattle.

We walk in silence for another few seconds before I can't stand it anymore. "It's fucking freezing."

Jun hunches her shoulders up around her ears, though if the action is out of frustration or the chill, I don't know. "I think there will be snow soon."

"Ooh, a white Christmas. That would be nice." Except for the fact that it's way too cold and the sky is very clear. The light pollution of Eminence hangs behind us like a hazy shield around the city, but the moon and stars burn bright enough to keep our path visible.

At least she is a patch of warmth at my side. And I'm pretty sure she's using me to block the chill as much as she is keeping me nearby so she can bother me about 'my feelings'.

But as we grow closer to the red dot, she doesn't bring it up again. She's content to hum to herself as we go, hands tucked inside her pockets.

My left hand is numb from holding the phone, but I don't mention it as I push on. This is easier to deal with. Easier than putting things into words.

I had asked her to talk about her uncle, so it is unfair that I won't return the favor. But at the same time, I hadn't done it so that she could turn the question back on me.

When my phone beeps to signal our arrival, I barely hear it over a sudden gust of wind that sweeps through the small gully we stand at the crest of. The slope drops away from us, covered in the same loose rock that the entire landscape has been on the walk over. I wonder what used to be here before, because according to Lysander, this isn't the historical location of the Saint Peter's church that our riddle pointed us towards.

Though why they would give us a riddle that points us in one direction and then tell us to go in another is just another one of the things about Meliora that I will never understand.

So much for a game for answers.

The path in the gully curves in a wandering downward angle, but it's steep enough that I can just barely make out the ramshackle roof of a building somewhere below us.

"I think we're here," I say, pocketing my phone for now and shoving my frozen hand into my pocket.

"This is a church?" she asks, incredulous. She doesn't seem too eager to make her way towards the ruins, and I don’t blame her. It's too cold, it’s too slippery, and this is a dumb game.

"It's where the map told us to go."

"Does it look like a church?"

It's a weird question that I don't really know how to answer. "I guess? Maybe? Like, if you see Old World pictures of churches, they look really fancy, but the ones in Eminence are just... normal buildings. There was a fancy one in New Ox, but it was more for decoration and I guess social status or something."

Jun considers this answer before pulling her arm from mine. "We might as well explore until we can find the code, right?"

I tilt my head back and let out a frustrated groan in the direction of the night sky. "I don't wannaaaaa."

"Neither do I, but the more soon we can finish, the more soon we will get to go home."

"Sooner," I say. "Not more soon."

She furrows her brow in confusion. "Okay, but then what about funner and more fun?"

I hold up my hands, but immediately regret it when my fingers feel the bite of the cold wind. "I don't know, man! Grammar is weird."

Jun's lips purse but she doesn't reply. Instead, she commences a rather perilous trip down into the gully -- her arms pinwheeling to keep her balance as she goes. Despite her clunky boots and her small stature, she handles the decline with ease and lands at the bottom after a few running steps.

I know for a fact I won't be nearly as graceful and practically have to lower myself onto the ground and scoot my way down the hill. Jun's giggles rise up to meet me as I make my way inch by painful inch to the bottom. "You want to know what I don't understand?" I ask as she helps me to my feet.

"What?" She starts off in the direction of the ruined building we had a hint of before without waiting to see if I will follow.

"We are all the way out here at the edge of the city. Why not just... go?" I wave a hand in the direction of the darkness. I don't know what direction New Ox is, but that won’t stop me. I only know which direction the Thames is in because it gets damp and muggy and smells like brine and the occasional rotting fish.

We've gone in the opposite direction from that. The chill comes from the December weather, and there is no smell because I'm about eighty percent certain my nose has frozen over or fallen off. At least the wind isn't so bad with the walls of the gully to block it.

"If an exit is all you want, then I guess that is the easy solution." She shoots me a pointed look but doesn't pursue it.

It's true, though. Neither of us are participating because we just want to leave the city. We are participating because we want answers to try and solve some greater mystery.

I am about to push the line of thought, but Jun holds out a hand to stop me. She's further down the path than I am, so she sees something that I don't.

"Jun?" I ask, but she whirls towards me and places a finger to her lips. Her eyes are wide as saucers, the whites standing out against the dark of her iris. I don't get the chance to ask for clarification before I hear a scuffling, and then the high pitched whine of a bunch of computers.

I know that sound.

I remember it from earlier this year, the last time Jun and I were crawling through some random out-of-the-way place.

I almost don't want to walk forward, but Jun casts an anxious glance between me and whatever it is over her shoulder -- as if unwilling to take her eyes off of it for too long but wanting to look at anything else.

So I move towards her, as careful as my feet will let me. My shoes catch the shale and I stumble, but I catch myself before I can fall.

When the last of the echoes fades, I push on.

Jun's jacket stands out like a signal flare in the gloom. I am probably the same in bright yellow, but we weren't exactly planning on sneaking around like secret agents when we came out on this mission.

She doesn't quite relax when I join her, but I can feel a bit of the tension easing from her shoulders. All she does is point in the direction of the ruined building.

I follow the line of her arm, the tip of her finger, and there is a slight movement against the dim white walls of the building.

There is a movement out of the corner of my eye.

It manages to avoid detection no matter how much I strain to pinpoint it.

And then the thing in front of the building moves just enough that its silhouette doesn't match up perfectly to the wall. The shape forms into a long-limbed creature. It’s hunched, stretched out past a natural limit. Skin stretched thin over bones.

I choke down a garbled sound of surprise, but enough noise gets out that the creature's head swivels to track me.

The same milky saucer-eyes land on me. First its head turns to match my stare, and then the rest of its body shifts to keep me in its sight.

Jun jerks, her back hitting my chest. It forces me to release the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding.

"What do you think we should do?" I whisper. I don't even know why I bother. I'm pretty sure it can hear how heavy I'm breathing.

Her head twitches side to side in some semblance of a shake. "We need the code. What if it's an elimination round? We can't afford to not find it." Her voice is as breathless as mine is.

"Yeah but..." My words die in my throat as the thing takes a few steps towards us. "Are we supposed to get past that thing?"

When we ran into this thing at the cemetery, the code had been placed back at the beginning. I wonder if we left now, if it would be at the bus stop.

I wonder if this thing would let us go if we tried.

"What if it is like the... mmm... The Menshen? Shen Shu and Yun Lei?" A wheezing giggle escapes from her. "I wonder which one this is."

"I don't know what you just said, but sure. Why not. It sounds like a challenge I don't want." I've stopped trying to whisper at this point. It knows where we are. Whispering just makes the anxiety of the situation worse.

"Door gods in ancient Chinese culture," she explains, taking a step back and forcing me to retreat with her. "Sent to guard the Jade Emperor's peach tree from demons that would gnaw on it." Jun looks from the thing to the ruins, then tilts her head to the side. Her eyes narrow a degree and her hands clench into fists at her side. "I can probably get past it."

I snort and put a hand on her shoulder, continuing my retreat. "Okay, good for you. I can't. I'm fast, but not nimble."

I have no doubt that that thing could outrun me without even trying.

Jun tries to shrug off my hand, but I latch on harder. "It will be distracted with you long enough for me to get away." Her laugh is high pitched and strained, but she doesn't fight against my grip again.

We make it another few steps before I feel my foot give out from beneath me on a loose piece of shale. It goes up, I go down, and I hit the ground hard. Pieces of the stone bite into the back of my head and my palms,

The breath is knocked from my lungs and Jun freezes in her spot, looking in the direction we were headed.

Before I can get the chance to move, Jun's eyes widen in horror and her chest expands with a sudden gasp.

She starts to scream but it's cut off by a clawed hand reaching out and catching onto the lower half of her face.

My body reacts without a moment's hesitation. I do a floppy half-flip back over my shoulder and kick out at whatever looms behind me.

A low, guttural groan that sounds like several old men moaning in chorus escapes a second bony monster and it releases Jun's face. There are red marks on her pale skin where it touched her, but she bends down and hooks her hands beneath my armpits and, with a mighty heave, gets me out of its range as it attempts to swipe at me.

Her breath comes hard. When she tries to pull again, her feet don't find traction. She slips down alongside me. "Zoné--" she tries, voice catching.

I cut her off and roll onto my knees. "Up." I hoist her to her feet and follow after. She tugs me aside as another rake of the claws comes in my direction. "Go go go!"

Jun doesn't question it, doesn’t hesitate. She scrambles up one side of the gully and I move to follow, but a blinding pain explodes across the already injured back of my head.

Everything goes black for no more than a second. When I come to, I'm back on the ground and a heavy weight sits on my chest.

Jun's scream causes the weight to shift, and I use the opportunity to grab a fistful of stones and slap it open-palmed into the torso of the creature.

Stings my hand quite a bit. It also doesn't seem as solid as I thought.

It's eyes swivel to me and, for just a moment, its weight lifts and it's gone and I'm pretty certain I must black out again.

Because it's there, heavy and real and growling with a hundred voices.

And then it's flung from me, tumbling head over heels several times. I look up to see Jun finding her footing after ramming it with her shoulder.

"Holy shit," I gasp. "That was so badass."

"Thank me later," she says, and once again I’m on my feet and we're running up the hill as fast as we can manage.

Jun reaches the top first. Neither of us see the second creature until its arms wrap around her midsection and heaves her off the ground. She shrieks, a mix of frustration and terror, kicking wildly.

My voice joins hers before I even realize what is happening. I lunge, trying to close the distance as it starts to retreat, but an ice cold grip burns around my wrist and jerks back so hard I think my arm is going to be pulled right from its socket.

Something grabs my ankle and tugs. I hit the ground face-first, unable to catch myself -- unable to do anything as Jun’s voice gets further away.

Pain reaches a crescendo in my skull, turning my stomach in uneasy flips to the point where I think I’m about to be sick. But I push it aside, trying to heave myself upright a second time. My arm throbs in its socket. “Jun!”

I can barely hear her cry above the ringing in my ears. It’s enough to know that she’s far, and only getting further. I can’t even lift myself all the way up.

The next time my eyes open, I’m flat on my back. The pain isn’t as bad as it had been, but my thoughts tilt and whirl in time with the rapid pace of my heart.

There’s nothing but silence.

I jerk upright and immediately regret the sudden movement. My entire body trembles as I cast about for any sort of sign of Jun.

The only thing I see is her pale blue jacket.

My legs manage to support my weight as I rise to my feet. I’m alone in the gully with nothing but the shale and the broken down remains of a building to keep me company. “Where are you?” I mutter, and I don’t know if the question is aimed towards my missing cell phone or to Jun. “Where the hell are you.”

I find my phone in my jeans’ pocket, right where I left it. I stare at the screen, shocked to see that there is a signal. Was it like the other night when they were able to block our signal? What does it mean that now I suddenly have one?

Whatever. It’s fine. I can call someone.

But who am I supposed to call?

Lysander first. He needs to know. He needs to start trying to find her.

I lift the phone to one ear and brush the hair out of my face with the other. That hand comes away sticky and warm.

“Hey,” Lysander’s voice hums. “Everything go alright?”

I stare at my fingers, my brain piecing together that I’m bleeding.

“Zoné?”

“Jun’s gone.” The words burst out of me in a single chunk. I don’t know if this is because of my head or my panic. I can’t think. “The creatures attacked us. They took her.”

“Hold on--” he tries. “What creatures?”

“From the cemetery--”

“What?”

I growl in frustration. “It doesn’t matter, Lysander! I need you to find her!”

“Fuck. Okay. Does she have her phone?”

Her phone? How would I know? I try to move my head, to find her jacket again, but the knife that has replaced my spine refuses to let me twist even the slightest bit. “I don’t think so. Her jacket is here.” My breath hitches and wheezes on its way out. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I can find your location, so stay right where you are. Jun’s, too, if she has her phone on her. I’ll come get you.”

I’m hardly listening to what he’s saying. I stare at the building, it’s open, gaping door staring back. It’s twenty feet from me.

I can see the QR code from here.

The panic finally settles in.

Words bubble up in my chest, reaching a boiling point before they spill out of my mouth. But despite the fire they cause, they are weak and confused the moment I speak them. “I need to call my brother.”

There’s silence from the other end. When he starts speaking, I can’t connect his words to meaning. I have to concentrate to understand him.

“Your what? What good would that do? Zoné, I need you to stay on the line so I can make sure you’re okay--”

“I’ll call you back later. I’ll--” The rest of the sentence dies before it can properly form. I take a breath and try again. “I’ll be here.”

I can’t go anywhere. There’s a knife in my neck instead of my spine and I’m bleeding from a gash on my head. There’s nowhere for me to go.

My thumb jabs the disconnect call button before I can piece together what Lysander is shouting on the other end of the line.

There’s only one thought in my mind as I scroll through the contacts to find the desired number.

Despite everything, I need to call Catoir. He’ll know what to do.

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