Scorpio quickly swung her backpack off of her shoulders and routed through it for her medical kit. Viper stirred, “eh,” he murmured, his eyes opening and then shutting. His eyes rolled in their sockets under their eyelids. “Ugh,” he moaned.
Scorpio shushed him and got to work on his injuries. She pinched the end of the needle in his leg, then took his leg and rotated it a little.
“Oh this one is going to hurt,” she grabbed the needle, thought about pushing it back through so the wider end came out first, but it was still going to leave a hole, so she yanked at the needle. There was a ripping sound and Viper screamed, she gave it another tug and this time it came out. She applied a patch to stop the bleeding and bandaged his leg. Viper was now almost convulsing in pain, he rolled from side to side until Scorpio grabbed him and put a knee on his stomach to stop him moving, “you are not gonna like these next ones then.”
She tried to get a grip of the next spike but it was pushed too far into Viper's chest. Instead she moved to the one that had the most exposed, gripped it tightly and pulled it out in one go. Viper's chest heaved and blood spurted from the deep hole. Scorpio had to move quickly, so grabbing the next one she heaved it out in one. She moved to the next one, took hold of it and tugged at it but her hand slipped, her hand now covered in blood. She wiped her hands and tried again, this time she was successful. She threw down the needle with the others and moved back to the one she had started with. She thought about if she should leave it in, if she should have left them all in, she decided against it, he was going to die anyway if she didn't pull them out. She reached into her medical kit and took out her tweezers, looked at them and put them back, they were not going to be big enough. Pliers, she thought and looked through her backpack, but she couldn't find any. Hacker would have some.
A shriek of pain sliced through the air, it was Hacker.
“Hacker!” Scorpio screamed.
The screaming continued, and then the weeping started. Again and again the cry erupted.
“Don't...” was all Hacker could manage, he seemed to be a couple of metres off from them. Hacker gave another scream of agony.
“Hacker, what's wrong? What did you do?”
The screaming died down as Hacker took a breath, then it continued for a good minute. Eventually they were only whimpers, “don't...” Hacker whimpered, “don't touch the flowers.”
Scorpio looked around her, the realisation of the situation finally hit her, the magnitude of the situation finally hit her. “Holy shit,” she whispered to herself. Viper's groans brought her back to reality.
“Hacker, have you got your pliers?”
There was a peculiar sound as Hacker breathed in with his teeth clenched, and let out a steady stream of air.
“Uhuh,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Do you know where we are?”
“No, of course not, have you seen this place it's absurd!”
Scorpio sighed, “no, you in relation to me and Viper.”
“You're with Viper? How is he, is he all right?”
“No! That's why I need you pliers!”
Viper let out a moan and tried to roll out from underneath Scorpio but she just pressed her knee down harder on Viper, making a little more blood spill out and making Viper yelp.
Hacker fell to his knees, and looked at the backpack on the floor, he had took it off before he had touched the flower. And now he found that his right hand was in a sling and his left hand was horrifically swollen and had turned a shade of dark violet. He touched his right hand to the backpack to try and open it, but as soon as he did he drew back, pain surging fresh through his body, twisting his muscles, drawing tears to his eyes. He let out a cry.
“Hacker? Where are you Hacker?”
Hacker whelped, “I'm over here.”
“Stay there, I'll come and get the pliers.”
“No! Don't go through the flowers!” But Scorpio was already making her way through, this time she kept her arms higher above her head than before. Scorpio burst through the flowers to where Hacker was knelt, one hand helpless in a sling, the other helpless by his side.
“Holy crap, Hacker!” she yelled as she saw his hand, “wait right here,” she crouched and routed through his backpack, found his pliers and stood back up, “I'll be right back after I deal with Viper.” And with that she turned and waded back through the flowers, back to Viper. She knelt beside Viper, who had rolled onto his side and pulled him back onto his back.
“Come on Viper. Last one, last one!” She opened the pliers as wide as they would go and just managed to get them around the needle, then clamping the pliers shut she knelt on Viper for support and pulled. Viper came up with the needle, his scream was painful to hear. She managed to get the needle half way out of his chest before the pliers came loose and slipped off, there was still a couple of inches left inside Viper. She grabbed the last needle and with a terrifying scream Viper was freed from the spikes of the Manticore.
Then she pulled off Viper's protective vest and placing a few patches over the entry holes in Viper's chest heavily wrapped his chest with bandages. Finally she opened a new bottle of mineral water and pour it over Viper's face, then wiped away the blood and grime that she could and examined how she had done, he looked considerably better than he had done thirty minutes earlier.
She sat down next to Viper and looked him over. “You're lucky I'm here,” she smiled and Viper gave a faint grin back, but his eyes quickly closed again. Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell unconscious. Scorpio just sat there and watched him, getting her breath back but not letting herself think about what they were going to do, how they were going to get out of this situation, and what they would do after they did.
She breathed deeply a few more times and then called out to Hacker, but there was no answer.
She felt her breath shorten and she looked around, then frowned, no she wasn't looking around because she wasn't turning her head. She took a moment to figure out that her vision had started spinning, faster and faster the colours started to blur into motion. She felt a heat wave pass over her, she had stopped breathing, her skin itched, she heard her heartbeat in her ears and the blood rushing through her ears. Her vision went black and then came back again, her eyes closed and opened uncontrollably, then her knees gave way and she fell backwards, her legs collapsing underneath of her. She tumbled and hit the ground, her head bounced once off the hard earth and came to a stop and then her eyes shut and darkness enveloped her.
Chapter 8: Flowering Hell
Start from the beginning
