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Movement
I walked out only about four steppes before stopping. I felt like I was about to fall into the
sky, it was never ending. Its vastness was visible from every angle I looked. After what seemed like an hour the fear of
falling up passed or at least subsided I began to look further down. I could see the horizon. The world was tangled with
serrated mountains. There was snow everywhere. It was something Kami would have to see. I wouldn't be able to explain the
beauty of the world to her. She would have to come next time. Our vault seemed to have dug up in a valley between two mountains
that merged miles from here. I couldn't look at the sun directly but it was moving from the left ridge to the right. I must
be facing south. Moving my vision down farther I could see pine trees covered in snow and a building less then half a mile
away. I started to walk. I observed broken bots scattered here and there. The bots inabilty to move well on the icy surface
must have caused all these to break down.
It was a struggle to keep from falling. The surface was slippery in some areas of the trip caused
by a thin layer of ice. I was almost to the communications tower when, I got distracted by a movement in the trees. I didn’t
see what made the movement but I was nervous. No animal life was supposed to have survived Shiva’s impact, yet this
movement was made by something. Suddenly I felt the urge to hurry to the communications building. I began to move on again.
Feeling the hairs on my neck begin to rise as an instinctual form of fear moved up my spine. I moved faster now fleeing from
this unknown threat across the path. A crack from the trees panicked my walking causing me to fall face first into the snow.
Spinning around to face my fear I saw small furry unfamiliar animal come crawling out of the trees where I first saw the movement.
I laughed out loud at my fear as I picked myself up.
I examined the animal from where I stood, unsure of if it were safe to move closer. It appeared
to have wings yet it was crawling instead of flying. I could see that the wings had a singular claw attached to the ends.
The two claws looked to be pulling itself across the ground. The unknown animal began moving slowly across the path towards
me. The movement seemed to be malevolent. The hairs across my spine began to rise up again. The communications tower close
I began to move on fast again but careful this time. I took glances back every second to see if the animal was moving towards
me still. As I was inserting the key I turned around one last time. The animal unwrapped its wings revealing the beasts alien
like underbody. This abomination had six more hairy legs with a singular claw attached to the end of each. The claws seemed
to look more like teeth designed to hold onto its prey rather then movement. The beast then pounced at me semi gliding from
its distance then exposing its under belly where is jaws were located. Its six pincers spread open for the bite.
Turning into the door to escape the beast, I pushed it open. The creature latched onto my upper
shoulder six fanged legs began to burrow into my flesh. The wings came around and speared my chest. Then came the teeth as
it bit into my shoulder blade. Then the creature began to squeeze with all its legs. It was like a giant tick. I could feel
it draining my blood.
I reached around my back and grabbed its closest wing and pulled fast. I ripped flesh from its
wing but nothing more. Reaching around the other side of my head and grabbed a hold of something and pulled again. I felt
a sharp pain in my side as the legs burrowed deeper. I lost my grip on this tick and fell to the ground. I began to feel
weaker as it continued to drain my blood. It was happening so fast.
Kami would never forgive me for being so rash about my adventuring if I died like this. She was
so worried about me going to the surface as one of the earliest adventurers. Apparently her woman’s intuition was correct.
It’s not safe on the surface, and I would die now because of my risk. I wish I were with her one last time.
I fell to the floor sprawled out unable to fight back anymore. Then the outer door slammed shut
and locked. I heard movement coming down some stairs in the distance and someone yelling as my vision started to fade.
“Hold on bud!”
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